


After We Saw the Stars

by BatMads



Series: Stars Above [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (don't hurt me), (no more), M/M, Victor POV, What is love, Yuri POV, baby don't hurt me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-05-27 01:25:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15013652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatMads/pseuds/BatMads
Summary: Yuri and Victor have come to terms with their Soulmate bond, but the question is: will they ever  act on it?





	1. Chapter 1

# Part One: Chasing Starlight

Yuri was curled into his usual corner of the couch at Graeme’s trying not to think of how much of a hipster he looked like. Not that he didn’t have anything against hipsters, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that people would look at him and _think_ he was a hipster and start making snap judgements. Like why, for example, he thought it was okay to sit alone on the biggest couch in the place.

It wasn’t that he was trying to take it all for himself, of course, or that he felt somehow entitled to it (even though he had been coming here almost every day for several days, which was more than could be said for the high-school aged weebs who were eyeing him from the gelato case). In fact, the very reason why he was shoved in the corner of the couch, trying to pretend he _hadn’t_ noticed the intense build-up of napkins and straw wrappers that had been buried in the crack between the cushion and the arm of the couch was so that people wouldn’t assume he was trying to take the whole couch for himself and would have room to sit on the other end if they wanted to.

With a sigh, he turned back to the book of poetry he had been trying to read as a distraction for the past hour. He had never liked poetry, really, never had the knack for understanding it, the way Victor had. But maybe that’s why he was doing his best to muscle through this collection; because it was a way to hold onto his soulmate and everything that Yuri liked about him. The book was Victor’s, anyways. Victor had left it behind at the lakehouse and Seamus had shipped it to him when the old man went to clean the place up at the end of the summer. By that time, however, Victor had already left and Yuri hadn’t had the opportunity to give it back to him.

Gone. He had met his soulmate, started to feel...something...for him, and now the man was gone. Had been for close to three weeks. Yuri still half expected him to walk up and sit down next to him. Just...plop down on this couch, for example, as if nothing had ever happened and just be there. But he never did. And he wasn’t going to.

He should have done more to get Victor to stay. Said something sooner. He wasn’t sure what, but he should have done it, that magical something that would have convinced Victor that his place was here sooner than less than twelve hours before he left.

The end of the couch sunk as someone collapsed into it. Yuri didn’t look up; he knew who it was, and it was a different sort of heartache than the one he felt for Victor’s absence.

“You look like a hipster,” Patrick said.

“I’m trying not to think about it,” Yuri replied more out of instinct than anything else. His brain shouted at him to ignore Patrick. His wasted heart told him to _look, see him; reach out, touch him._

He had been starved for company since Victor had gone. Theia had been around to talk to, and he still shared the apartment with Phichit, but real company. He had been missing people he could call in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep. People he could call when there was an idea running itself ragged around his mind and he needed to tell somebody about it. He had been starved of people he could have whispered conversations with. Someone who could be his confidante, someone who, when they looked at him, saw all of him, not just parts of the whole.

At his end of the couch, Patrick huffed a little laugh through his nose.

“Okay,” Yuri’s ex-best friend said.

To be fair, Patrick wasn’t wrong. Everything about him did scream “hipster” today. From the new glasses he had gotten last week (his prescription had been getting old, and after Victor left he had been itching to make some sort of change, to do something different), to his jeans and the boatshoes. The poetry probably was the deciding factor. That, and the tea steaming in a mug on the side table next to him. Oh, and the fact that he was in a little corner independent coffee shop that sold coffee and tea exclusively from local vendors. Really, there was no escaping the aesthetic today. Maybe he should embrace it.

Unable to help himself, Yuri finally glanced out of the corner of his eye towards Patrick. Patrick had sprawled out in the remaining space of the couch in his usual careless fashion that Yuri had once found endearing. Now, with Patrick’s ratty chucks just inches from Yuri, Yuri was more inclined to find it annoying and invasive.

“You need new shoes,” was all he said, turning back to Victor’s poetry.

For a long moment, he could feel the heavy weight of Patrick’s gaze on him, pinning him to his corner of the couch. Yuri resisted the urge to squirm. Casually, he turned to the next page, even though he hadn’t finished the poem he had been in the middle of unraveling.

“I know,” Patrick said. “I ordered new ones. Black. I’m going to get that girl we know from GSA to customize them.”

Poetry was stupid and Yuri was not currently comprehending how Victor was able to thread words into lines and stanzas so easily.

“Do you want to know how I’m getting them customized?” Patrick asked.

Like, the opening of this poem here:

 _The first time Percy came back_  
_he was not sailing on a cloud._  
_He was loping along the sand as though_ _  
_ he had come a great way.

What was that even trying to say? What was the point of it? People never came sailing in on clouds. And how did loping along the sand imply that he had come a great way? Yuri skimmed the rest of the poem; it provided no answers for him, just more questions. In fact, the implication seemed to be that Percy was not back at all, or, if he was, perhaps he was a ghost? But then, where was the narrator going that they would have to come back and people would have to tell stories about them? Wasn’t this story supposed to be about _Percy_ coming back? It was in the title and everything.

“Flames,” Patrick said. “I’m getting flames. It's going to look rad as fuck.”

Victor had written a little note in the margin and Yuri stared at it for several seconds, trying to figure out what his soulmate had written in that familiar, tight handwriting, but then he realized that it was in Russian, and turned to the next page.

“Awesome,” Patrick muttered, but it sounded less like he meant the shoes, and more like he meant the situation between them.

For the first time, it occured to Yuri that perhaps Patrick had been feeling a little lonely these past few weeks too.

“Look, Yuri,” Patrick started.

Yuri folded his lips into a tight line. He knew what was coming, and he could feel his heart breaking all over again with it. He considered getting up right then and just walking away, but immediately decided against it. It would take too much time to gather up his stuff, and Patrick would just grab his arm as he walked by to leave. Besides, he was comfortable curled up in this little corner trying to unpuzzle Victor’s poetry.

“I fucked up. I get that. I am a terrible person and, when it comes down to it, I probably do deserve the worst the world has to offer.”

Oh, those were dangerous words, coming from Patrick.

“And I am sorry,” Patrick continued. His voice cracked and everything in Yuri went still at the sound. “So, so, sorry that I wronged you, and I wish I could just take everything back and do things differently but I can’t. That’s not how this works, and I’m left with what I have done, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry.”

“Do you love him?” Yuri asked tightly.

“No, yes, I don’t know,” Patrick said. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Try,” Yuri said.

Victor had written a margin note on this page here. Yuri rubbed his thumb along it carefully, as if it would disappear as soon as he touched it, as if he could wipe Victor away that easily.

“He’s my hero,” Patrick said weakly.

Victor was Yuri’s hero. That did not mean, however, that Yuri loved him. That just meant that Yuri loved the idea of him, loved everything that he represented. Yuri loved the person that Victor was in his head, not the real Victor, not the Victor that had read this little book of poetry and liked it well enough to write notes in the margin (although the thinking of that Victor left a certain sort of nonspecific ache in Yuri’s chest).

(They hadn’t talked since Victor had left. Just a text when Victor had arrived back home. A text and a picture of Makka.)

(People in love did more than that, right?)

(Right?)

“But, he’s also a person, and the person I’ve gotten to know him as is also kind of my hero too, Yuri. I’m trying to figure it out. It’s different than us. I can’t explain how, but it’s different.”

(What Yuri felt about Victor was different than he had felt for Patrick. Did that mean he was falling in love with his soulmate too? It was hard to say. It would be easier if love always looked and felt the same and caused the same responses, like a carefully replicated experiment. But maybe you fell in love with your soulmate differently than you fell in love with other people, and there was no accounting for that because it never happened to a person twice.)

“I trust him,” Patrick said. “Instinctively. I just do. Something about him; I know I can trust him with who I am all at once instead of just in little pieces. And I’m not afraid to trust him, because somehow, I know he won’t ever flinch away from what he sees. It doesn’t feel like I need to build up courage to tell him the worst of things, because it just feels like something he somehow already knows, like the color of my eyes, or how many freckles I have.”

Once, Yuri had called those freckles stars and traced out constellations between them. Once, he had kissed Patrick’s cheeks, muttering the name of every constellation his lips passed over as he did. Once, he had fallen in love with Patrick, and once, Patrick had broken his heart, because Patrick was not as careful of a person as Yuri was, and those freckles hadn’t been precious to him until he had seen them mapped out on another man’s face. Only then had Patrick bothered to count them and care about them, it seemed, but Yuri always had. There were seventy two big freckles. There were one hundred and eleven, if you counted all the small ones. Yuri had sorted them into fourteen constellations of varying sizes. It unnerved him to think that those same constellations were on Nolan’s face.

“And you couldn’t do that with me?” Yuri asked.

He didn’t like the way his voice sounded. He took a sip of his tea.

“Yuri, I felt like my heart was in my throat the day I met you and told you everything. I told you because it felt like destiny to tell you, not because I was unafraid to tell you. And even then, I didn’t tell you everything. Not really.”

That was true. A lot of the hard stuff, the really personal parts of Patrick’s story, had been left out of that first fateful telling. Those hadn’t come until later, and they had been whispered in the dark, as if saying them aloud during the day would have made it all too real for Patrick to bear again.

“I loved you,” Yuri whispered into Victor’s book of poetry.

“I know,” Patrick said, “I loved you too.”

“Then why,” Yuri asked.

“Because he felt like an adventure, and I didn’t want him to walk away.”

And Yuri, careful, consistent Yuri, was not the adventure that Patrick needed. They had been an adventure, once. The two boys hiding in the bathroom, but then all their secrets had been told and their story had become as common as something on a Hallmark TV special. At some point, they had stopped being an adventure and started just being something that existed. Maybe one day Patrick would want that, but not yet. Really, with all things said and done, they were pretty different. They had just become very good at seeing all the ways that their differences complemented each other, instead of all the ways they contradicted. Patrick wanted a fairly tale, a happy ending, a destiny. Yuri wanted someone who was just going to be there for him at the end of the night. He didn’t need an adventure, life itself was already enough of one.

Yuri nodded and folded the poetry book closed. He was getting a headache trying to decipher all of this.

“I’ll see you later,” he said, standing up, methodically packing up all his stuff.

Patrick didn’t say anything, just watched him through the long process until he was finished.

“I miss you,” Patrick said as he turned to go.

Yuri glanced back at him and regarded Patrick fully for the first time in weeks. His ex-boyfriend looked a little gaunt, a little tired, a little more worn than usual; but just as defiant, just as ready to fight back against everything the world might try and throw at him.

“I miss you too,” Yuri found himself admitting before he could stop himself. He modified the thought before the words he could see forming on Patrick’s lips could slip out.

“But I need time, still, P,” he said. “You—I need time.”

Patrick sank back into the couch and nodded tersely.

“Don’t be a stranger,” was all Patrick said as a goodbye.

Yuri walked away without replying.

OOO

Victor was trying not to think about the loud creak he had just heard echoing from somewhere in the apartment. He thought it had come from the sitting room. It had sounded suspiciously as though someone had been walking around in there. Frankly, he had no desire to investigate.  
  
Frankly, he wished Yuri we’re here, because when Yuri was around, Victor found he was compelled to do bold and brave things when he was otherwise disinclined to do so, like in the middle of the night, when his worst fear started chasing itself around his head. Oh, he really hoped someone hadn’t broken in. He really, really hoped, for once, that he was completely alone in this apartment.  
  
He wished that, if Yuri could not be here, Yuri was at least awake, so Victor could text him about this sudden terror that someone had broken into his apartment and was now hiding in his sitting room, waiting for Victor to go back to sleep so they could kill him in the surprise attack of the century.  
  
Well, actually, Victor realized as he struggled to remember how far ahead of Detroit Petersburg was, Yuri might be awake. (Generally speaking, Victor was also not very good with calculating time differences) but even so, who was to say Yuri wasn’t busy anyways? Or that Yuri would even want to be bothered by him? The only response that Yuri has sent to Victor’s text about arriving safe and sound was a quick “glad to hear” and “Makka looks so cute!”  
  
That was it. No “how are you, Victor?” “How are you settling back in, Victor?” “Do you miss me, Victor?”  
  
(Fine, but in no way his usual excellent self. Poorly and mechanically, mostly; the fact that he had moved back to Petersburg after a year away had not yet sunk in enough to feel real. And yes, he missed Yuri. He missed Yuri very, very much).  
  
He and Yuri has kissed the night when they had gone stargazing, had nearly done far more than kissing really, caught up in the moment, but hadn’t because both of them had neglected to bring along the necessary supplies. But he had had to slip away close to dawn to finish packing and then leave. Yuri had accompanied him as far as their paths had been one, then split off and headed back home before Phichit could catch him gone and start asking nosey questions. It had been a bittersweet parting, but a necessary one.  
  
For a moment, Victor thought he heard the nonspecific creak again, and his ears strained to catch it, but all they caught were the sounds of the city as it stirred and carried on with being. No intruder hiding in his apartment. No one coming home at some ungodly hour. Although, at the thought of someone coming home at an ungoldly hour, his heart irrationally surged with the hope that it would be Yuri, somehow here and wanting to sneak into bed with him.

Besides Victor, Makkachin snuffled, twitched, and then went on snoring. Clearly, whatever Victor had heard had not been enough to wake his faithful poodle. Although, he would have been the first to admit that Makka wasn’t much in the way of a guard dog—he loved people too much to be any good in the role..

The creak came again and Victor tried for all of a moment to tell himself that it was just the old building settling before his emotions got the best of him. Quickly, before he could lose his nerve, he swiped his phone up from where he had left it charging on the nightstand, flicked on the flashlight, and slipped out of bed and through his bedroom door into the sitting room.

It was completely dark, except for the little patch of floor in front of the couch where the golden light of a street lamp outside slipped in through the window. The light of his flashlight caught on the mirrored door of the closet across the room and he jumped before he realized what it was. A poem he had written that spring, after everything that had happened with Yuri, slipped into his mind before he could stop it:

 _In my head, I_  
_Imagined myself a fearsome_  
_Creature, warrior, fighter_  
_But in my heart I_  
_Know I was just a_ _  
_ Drifter, loner, dreamer.

He should have dragged Makkachin out here with him. The poodle, even if his qualities as a guard dog were lacking, would have sniffed out a new friend in the apartment within seconds. As it was, though, Makka was still sleeping happily on the bed in the room behind him, and Victor was too afraid of the darkness in front of him to go back and retrieve his companion.

His light flashed on the mirror across from him again, a bit like a fallen star. Beyond it’s brilliance, he could see his eyes, wide and terrified of what he would find hiding in the corners tucked out of his sight. His hair was unruly too, mused from sleep and exposing the high forehead he had despised since he had been a child. It was a trait passed down to him from his father, but while on him it had always looked stern and imposing (almost affirming the man’s sheer power of personality), it just left Victor looking like he had a premature receding hairline. He was half certain he would be bald before he hit the age of thirty.

Quickly, Victor flashed his light away from the mirror, around the corner into the empty kitchen. He couldn’t see anyone hiding behind the table, or the big industrial type counter, but it was hard to say for certain. Steeling himself, he looked back across the yawning expanse of the sitting room. The couch was a little dividing mark in it, but the stretch from where he stood to the light switches near the door seemed impossibly far. If there truly was an intruder in his apartment, they would have ample opportunity in the decades it would take to cross that big, empty space.

For a moment, he longed for his two-level apartment back in Pontiac, where any suspicious noise could quickly be investigated by glancing over the low wall of the loft, and where there had been a second switch for the main light at the top of the stairs. He had always been able to flick it on before going down to check on things, and he had been able to leave it on, investigation over, until he had climbed the stairs and reached the relative safety of his room.

But he was losing his nerve. Victor took a deep, steadying breath, and then scrambled across the open expanse of his apartment to the light switches on the other side. Even when he had reached them, and flicked every light on, he still eyed the closed closet doors a little nervously. For all he knew, after all, somebody could be hiding safely inside them, out of sight, waiting for him to fill himself with a false sense of reassurance and head back to bed.

Where they would, inevitably, kill him once he had drifted off.

Carefully, he pushed the doors open, and examined every corner carefully with his flashlight, assuring himself that there was no one hiding beneath the boxes he had left stacked inside, behind his bag and coat. When he was finished, he slid the door closed, glanced back at the kitchen to make sure, once again, that there was no one hiding in it, and then flicked off the flashlight on his phone. He was alone. There was nothing to be afraid of. Unless, of course, he counted being alone, which he had certainly come to despise in the last few days. But then again, he had always hated being alone.

The memory came to him, sharp and clear, out of the dark recesses of his mind, of being woken up before the dawn one morning by his mother in his bed back in the house in Paris.

She was going to meet Papa at the airport, and she didn’t want to wake him up and have to drag him along when she knew he’d rather be sleeping. Besides, he was a big boy of twelve. He could stay in the house alone with the family dog, Musca, for company until she came back with his father. Yes, he had nodded, sleepily agreeing, he could do that.

She had made him come downstairs, and sleep in the couch in the sitting room, so he would be able to hear them when they had come home. He could remember gathering up all his blankets, his down comforter, off the bed and piling it all around him on the couch like a giant nest and settling down inside it. His mother had kissed him on the forehead before she had left and told him to sleep well. Musca had curled besides him and promptly fallen asleep.

But he had laid awake for what seemed like hours, listening to every creek of the house and thinking that it was an intruder hiding somewhere beyond his sight. When he had finally drifted off to sleep, he was woken but a loud screeching sound emanating from somewhere in the house. He hadn’t been able to sleep after that, and had been grateful when his mother came back and father had clomped upstairs to go to bed in their big room because the flight had been long. His mother had taken him out for hot chocolate and petit pain au chocolat at the little cafe around the corner.

A week later, when the accident happened, he had remembered the loud screech that had woken him up before and thinking that the sound of two cars colliding, while also a screech, was a different and somehow less terrifying sort of screech. He hadn’t been afraid until he had looked over and seen his mother’s body next to him.

Victor fiddled with his phone as he slumped down onto the couch. He was exhausted, but even though he had managed to convince himself that there was no intruder, he couldn’t bring himself to go back to sleep. For all he knew, after all, they had slid into the bathroom, or snuck past him and were now hiding behind the curtains next to his bed.

He should call Yuri, even if he was wrong about the time difference and it was inconvenient. He needed to hear his soulmate’s voice. He needed to make this apartment, which he had once loved for all it’s open space, feel less like a yawning cavern, and more like a small, close embrace. He needed someone to tell him that it was not foolish to wake up in the middle of the night and search for an intruder that had probably never existed to begin with.

He rubbed his phone over the screen, working up the nerve to call, trying to convince himself that Yuri would answer after those less than enthusiastic text messages.

“I hate this,” he said quietly, breaking the silence of the empty apartment.

He glanced around all the same, half expecting the intruder to have heard him, and to say something back, but he only saw his reflection in the windows overlooking the street, marred by the golden light coming through the window. He looked back down at his phone and pulled up Yuri’s contact profile. Heart pounding, he hit the call button and settled back into the couch as he waited for the call to connect.

He looked at his window reflection again. It really was quite poor, more the suggestion of a person than anything else. It wavered in the old glass of the window panes.

His phone hummed as he waited for the call to connect.

There was no one in the apartment. There was no one in the apartment.

“Hello?” Said a voice—Yuri’s voice—on the other end of the line.

A smile slipped onto Victor’s face, and it lit up all the parts of him that the apartment’s lights hadn’t been able to reach.

“Yuri,” he said. “How have you been?”


	2. Chapter 2

Yuri was not entirely certain that this—talking to Victor right now—was actually happening. He’d been on the way home from practice and just...his phone started ringing, and it had been Victor and just…

He hadn’t realized how much he had missed the sound of his soulmate’s voice until he heard it crackling imperfectly down the line to him. 

“Yuri,” Victor said again, as if checking to make sure that he was still there. 

“I’ve been fine,” Yuri stuttered out. “How have you been?”

“I don’t like being alone,” Victor said. 

It was an answer and a non-answer all in one, and that was exactly the language that Yuri was most fluent at. So many meanings packed into one little sentence. Victor was lonely. Victor missed him. Victor had a story to tell that led to the direct delivery of this little line. 

“What happened?” Yuri asked, trying to keep the chuckle out of his voice. 

“Renovated old buildings are still very old buildings,” Victor said, “and I just remembered exactly how unnerving the sound of this building settling is.”

Now, Yuri did laugh. “What happened?” He asked again, prompting Victor to keep going. 

Victor sighed heavily. “I thought someone might have been sneaking around my apartment in the dark, but there’s no one here. I checked. I still can’t shake the feeling though that there actually is someone in my apartment and I just haven’t found them, so I can’t go back to sleep.”

It occured to Yuri then, that it if was later in the evening for him, it must be very, very, late (or very, very early) for Victor. 

“You know, in case they decide to kill me when my guard down,” Victor continued. “So I’m just sitting here on the couch, staring at my reflection in the windows and talking to you because I missed you and I am Very Freaked Out right now and I needed someone to talk to.”

“I missed you too,” Yuri said. “And I’m sorry the shadow people have broken into your apartment.”

“Psh,” Victor said, and Yuri could see him, brushing away the thought of people in his apartment with a little wave. “I’m sure if I keep the lights on long enough, they’ll go away. Do you really mean you missed me though?”

Victor had heard him. He hadn’t just ignored the sentiment and moved right onto the shadow intruders. The thought warmed Yuri’s heart. And the earnestness with which he asked if Yuri meant it—he didn’t mean that he had missed Yuri casually, earlier, like he might miss Theia or Phichit—he missed Yuri specifically, and he wanted to know if Yuri missed him the same way. 

“Yes,” Yuri said. “There’s no one to hang out with now. I mean, there is, but they’re not...you.”

“Oh,” Victor said. 

Yuri came to a crosswalk as a car was coming through the intersection and he waited, scuffing the toe of his shoe on the sidewalk and waiting for Victor to say something more. 

“Same here,” Victor said at last. 

The intersection cleared up and Yuri kept walking. The breeze swept through his hair. A few dead leaves scuttled by, but not many. For late-September, the weather was absurdly pleasant. 

“I can’t decide if everyone else has changed, or if I’ve changed,” Victor said, “but either way...it’s just not the same. Working with Yakov again is great—he always knew just how to push me to do better—but Zarya, her little sister Mila, Georgi, everyone else I used to know, hanging out with them just isn’t the same. I never thought I’d say it, but I miss Pontiac. I miss getting to hang out with you during practice and getting to walk home with you and getting to hear about your day. How is your day going, by the way?”

“Fine,” Yuri said, laughing. “I just finished practice. Walking home now.”

He paused for a minute, debating whether or not he wanted to add the thought that was circling his head, and then took the plunge. 

“Saw Patrick yesterday. Talked a little.”

“Oh,” Victor said. “I was going to remind you to watch out for cars but  _ oh. _ ”

“Yeah,” Yuri said. 

“What did he want to talk about? How did you even see him?”

“I was at Graeme’s reading on the back couch. He came up and sat besides me, and it felt rude to just stand up and leave right then, so…”

“He cornered you?” Victor asked. 

“Yeah, basically,” Yuri huffed. “I don’t know. It’s weird. I’m still...not mad, exactly, but, yeah, I guess, kinda mad that he would do that to me, you know? But also just...hurt that he would too, and I don’t think I’m still in love with him, but I miss having him around as my friend. I used to tell him everything, and now it’s just...he’s not even part of my life and he’s still here but I miss him.”

“I’m sorry,” Victor said gently. 

“He said he misses me too,” Yuri said quietly. “But I just—I can’t talk to him right now. I just can’t.”

“I get that,” Victor said. 

“I’m sorry,” Yuri said. “You called me and I’m just dumping you with all of my problems.”

“I like hearing about your life,” Victor said. “All of it, problems, triumphs. Like I said, I missed you.”

“Then why haven’t you called me before?” Yuri asked. 

He reached another crosswalk and he paused, looking both ways before he crossed it. 

“I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Oh,” Yuri said. “It wouldn’t have been a bother.”

“Well, I know that  _ now _ .” Victor shot back. “But at every time I wanted to I forgot how far behind me you are timewise and I was afraid I’d call at a bad time and you’d get mad, or that you wouldn’t even want me calling at all because you’re busy.”

“I don’t really do that much,” Yuri said, “and even if I was busy, I’d call you back when I wasn’t. I like talking to you, after all.”

“Mmmmmmm,” Victor hummed. “Yuri, I love this city,” he said suddenly. 

Yuri just chuckled. He had always known, of course, how much Victor loved his precious Petersburg. Even if Victor didn’t realize it, he shared stories about his life there constantly, and colored behind every word was his longing to return to the canals, the river, the park, the streets he knew so well and the buildings that seemed to guard him as he walked on the street beside them. It was his home, and even if he said now that he missed Pontiac, Yuri knew that it wasn’t so much Pontiac that he missed as their family, and their special places here. 

“Why?” Yuri still asked, even though he knew, just so he could hear what Victor’s answer would be this time. 

“Well, I’m sitting here on my couch,” Victor said, “watching my reflection in the window as I talk to you and just beyond it, where the window is still dark, I can see the park and I’m thinking about going and just walking around there tomorrow morning and writing poetry and swinging by the cafe across the way for breakfast before practice. Yuri, I’ve missed you all, but I’ve missed this city too, and sometimes I forget that.”

“That sounds nice,” Yuri said, “Breakfast and the park and all that. There are some woods behind the football stadium that I go wandering in sometimes. And I’m glad you’re happy to be home, even if the people aren’t what you expect.”

“I wish you could be here with me,” Victor said. 

And Yuri could picture him when he said it, turning away from the reflection to focus only on talking to Yuri, the soft sad look that would fill Victor’s eyes, the way he would fidget with some loose thread, or rub his fingers together, as he always did when he was saying something that he had been thinking about and that was important to him. 

“I wish I could be with you too,” Yuri admitted. “I wish you could show me around the park and show me all your favorite places and I wish I could keep skating with you.”

Victor huffed out a little laugh. 

“Maybe you can stop by and see me sometime,” he said. 

“Maybe,” Yuri replied. 

He didn’t think he would get to, but it was pretty to think so. He had liked spending time alone with Victor this summer in the cabin, even when half of his heart had been screaming “but what about Patrick?” the entire time. The idea of getting to spend time with Victor alone in Petersburg...it was something out of one of his dizziest daydreams.  

The question was, of course, in what capacity? They had started making out on the blanket the night Yuri had taken him stargazing, but they hadn’t defined the relationship beyond that, and frankly, Yuri wasn’t certain he wanted to even try to define the relationship beyond that—not before he was certain of how he felt. 

Besides, all things considered, it still felt some days like if he and Patrick had  _ just  _ broken up. And they kind of had only just broken up. You didn’t just get over a three year long relationship in three months. 

It took Yuri a second to realize that neither he nor Victor had said anything for several moments. 

“Sorry,” Yuri said. “We were talking and I trailed off.”

“It’s all right,” Victor said. “What were you thinking about. 

Victor. Patrick. The giant question mark his lovelife had become.

“Just...life in general” Yuri said. 

“Is school getting busy?” Victor asked. 

Yuri shrugged, even though he knew that Victor couldn’t necessarily see him. 

“It’s always busy,” Yuri admitted, “but I’m managing. I take enough credits to stay on as a full time student, but that’s it, really. It would be too much to do school and skating at one time, you know?”

“Right,” Victor said.

Again, neither of them spoke for a long moment, but it wasn’t awkward or bad. It was...companionable A comfortable silence that they shared together, a small bubble they had carved out of the universe that was filled with just them. 

“When do I get to see you again?” Victor asked. 

His voice was filled with a familiar sort of ache—familiar because it was the same ache that filled Yuri’s heart whenever he thought of his soulmate, half a world away. 

“Well,” Yuri said, thinking about it, “you were assigned to Skate America too, weren’t you? So that’s just a month away.”

(Saying that out loud left all sorts of anxiety twisting around Yuri’s heart, even if the thought of seeing Victor was comforting in its own way.)

“A month,” Victor breathed. “That’s not so bad,”

“No,” Yuri agreed, smiling, “it really isn’t.”

They both fell silent again as they considered that. But then Victor spoke again. 

“I should probably go back to bed,” Yuri’s soulmate said softly. “It’s late...or early, I guess. And I have practice today. Yakov will kill me if I’m not up to his standards.”

“Alright,” Yuri said. “If you go to that cafe for breakfast, get a croissant for me, will you?”

Victor laughed, sweet and familiar, and Yuri almost sighed at the sound. Victor’s voice, Victor’s laugh. Those were the two things he had been missing more than anything else these past few weeks. 

“I will,” Victor promised. 

“Good,” Yuri said, strangely pleased. “Now go back to bed. I don’t want to keep you.”

“Okay,” Victor said. “Goodnight, Yuri.”

“Goodnight, Victor,” Yuri replied. 

And then the line went dead as Victor hung up. The breeze pushed its way through Yuri’s hair, colder now than it had been just minutes ago, and he shivered. The silhouette of his apartment building up ahead didn’t seem welcoming anymore, but rather foreboding. It was the last place he wanted to be right then, actually. He looked down at the phone he still held in his hands and, heart pounding, opened up a new text. 

OOO

Practice that day was grueling, if only because Victor was massively sleep deprived. He bought an extra croissant at the pastry shop that morning, just as Yuri asked. He briefly considered actually saving it, although further reflection had proven what a silly idea that was, so he ate it now as he walked through the part along the river, listening to the families that were out enjoying the one of those rare, perfect fall afternoons. 

It had been a strange transition to come back home. He had lived with Yakov for a little while while he waited for the couple he had rented his apartment to over the last year to make other arrangements. But it had been strange too to not have to speak in English all the time, to hear and see Russian everywhere instead of having to pause a moment to decode English slang and dialects. As much as he had told Yuri otherwise this morning—that he felt odd coming home because he had changed—he also had to admit that it was a relief. He missed Yuri. He missed everyone else. But Yuri hadn’t been wrong this summer; this city sang to Victor’s heart in the same way that skating a poetry did. He felt a sense of rightness now walking through the park that he had only rarely felt back in Pontiac. 

It was hard to say that he didn’t wish he could still be with Yuri and their little family back in Michigan. But now that he was back in Petersburg, now that he was growing accustomed to the the quirks and familiararities of his city that had been nearly forgotten, it was hard to say that he entirely regretted leaving Pontiac. 

The odd noises from the apartment were a problem, of course, but Victor knew he’d get used to them in time. That was the way these things always worked. The apartment in Pontiac had unsettled him at one point too, he was sure, as had the old house in Paris, and the home of his childhood. But he’d learned to dismiss those fears and keep on living. 

What scared Victor most now, as he reached the bridge and turned to start walking back home, was that he would get used to living without Yuri. That he would get used to living without a family. That he would go back to being his old self. Not unhappy, but not happy either. He had just been...breathing...before he had moved to Pontiac. Existing. Yuri and the rest had shown him what it meant to  _ live.  _ And he didn’t want to lose that.

But, as he finished the croissant now, as he threw away the wrapper in a bin nearby, as he looked out over the river rushing below him, Victor thought that regressing to the person he had been before might be something he had absolutely no way of preventing. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *nervous laughter* Please don't hate me.

Yuri did not text Patrick that evening. 

He texted Patrick the next evening, after he had gone for a long walk and cleaned his room more thoroughly than he had since moving into the apartment. On the bed before him now lay a small collection of Patrick’s things: A handful of thongs and G-strings Yuri had bought his ex-boyfriend over the years, several of Patrick’s shirts and boxers that Yuri had borrowed and never given back, some CDs, some DVDs, a book that Patrick had been reading this spring and had never finished. There was more, of course. Some dishes, a few socks, a pair of pants, some running shorts and tanks. Seeing it all clumped together like this on his carefully made bed left Yuri’s heart feeling more raw and broken than it had in a while. 

Before him lay all the physical evidence of what he and Patrick had been. The only reason why there was so much of it was because they had so much history. This level of debris could only be acquired after years of two people tangling their lives so much together that the lines between what belonged to whom got blurred. 

At least, Yuri thought, grimly surveying it all as he slipped his phone back into his pocket, he and Patrick had never taken the leap and moved in together. Finding a new apartment when the school year had already started would have been more trouble than Yuri would have known how to handle. 

When he didn’t feel his phone buzz with a reply right away, Yuri left his room, and the memories piled inside it, and made himself and Phichit some dinner. After that he did his homework while he waited. And then he plugged in and stayed up playing games with Phichit, still waiting. 

He moved all the stuff off his bed and dropped it in the corner by his telescope when he went to bed that night, still with no reply from P…from Patrick. 

It all stayed there while the weekend rumbled by. Yuri texted Patrick again, a little bit angrier this time, and put in more hours in the lab instead of going out with Theia. 

On Sunday, while he continued to wait on Patrick, Yuri cleaned the main living area. He found three dollars and ninety-eight cents in the couch. He found a pair of Patrick’s old trainers, which he added to the pile, along with a light jacket, a pair of gloves, and a hat that also belonged to his ex-boyfriend. He cleaned out Phichit’s hamster cage. He swept the deck. He scrubbed the chairs and table they had out there. 

Still no reply. 

On Monday, he finished classes early, swung by the lab, and then went to practice. When he saw that both of his texts had still gone unanswered, Yuri punched in Patrick’s number and started walking while he waited for the call to connect. 

Just last week, Patrick had been talking about how much he missed Yuri, wouldn’t stop talking to Yuri even when Yuri had done his level best to ignore the other boy, and now Patrick wasn’t even responding to Yuri’s texts. The inconsistency was maddening, but somehow, Yuri thought with bitter vindication, not surprising. What was Patrick if not continuously inconsistent? First he had said he wanted them to be together forever, and then he had gone and slept with his soulmate. Really, at this point, Yuri didn’t know why he was so fucking surprised that Patrick hadn’t changed. 

The call took so long to connect that, for a moment, Yuri thought it was just going to go to voicemail. 

But then Patrick picked up. His voice rang dully down the line. 

“Hello?” Patrick asked. 

“Did you get my texts?” Yuri snapped. 

He reached a crosswalk and glanced quickly in both directions before storming across. 

Patrick didn’t speak for a long moment, and then he sighed. 

“Yeah,” he said quietly. 

“Do you want your shit back or not?” Yuri asked. 

“What do you even have?” Patrick asked. 

“A lot,” Yuri said flatly. “And I’m sure I left a bunch of stuff over at your place too. Can I come over tomorrow and drop your stuff off and pick mine up? I think you still have half of my Studio Ghibli movies and a few of my blankets.”

“Tomorrow?” Patrick asked. 

“What?” Yuri snapped. “Are you busy?”

Another long pause. 

“No,” Patrick said, emotionless. “I’m not busy. What time are you coming?” 

“I get out of class at two,” Yuri said. “So I can be at your place with all your stuff by three.”

“Okay,” Patrick said. “Fair warning, I have no idea where to begin looking for everything you might have here.”

Yuri rolled his eyes. Of course not. Of course Patrick couldn’t just make this easy for both of them. He started stalking through the next crosswalk without bothering to check for cars. 

“Fine. If you can’t do it, I’ll look through everything at your place myself just—”

Rubber burned on pavement. Yuri jumped as headlights washed over him. He could see the driver, just a few feet away, looking at him incredulously. Yuri, very much not in the mood to deal with them, flipped them off his free hand. He scrambled out of the way, though, when their expression turned to fury and the car inched closer. 

“—Just don’t worry about it,” Yuri finished. 

“Are you okay?” Patrick asked. “I heard screeching.”

“Yeah,” Yuri huffed. “I just almost got hit by a car, but I’m fine. Fucking freshman.”

He expected Patrick to make a joke then, asking how Yuri knew it was a freshman, or teasing him for not looking anyways, or for Patrick to shout something about getting them to pay Yuri’s tuition, but Patrick said nothing.

“So three tomorrow?” Yuri asked. 

“Yeah, whatever, sure,” Patrick said. 

“Fine,” Yuri replied. “See you then.” 

“See ya,” Patrick said, and then the line went dead. 

For a moment, Yuri just stood there, staring at his phone, hardly believing that that conversation had gone the route it had, but then he shook his head, and stomped home. Patrick was an ass. Patrick had cheated on him after they had dated for years. At this point, he shouldn’t be surprised. 

Still, though, he didn’t know why he felt so let down. 

OOO

At three o’clock sharp the next day, Yuri stood at the front door of Patrick’s apartment building, ringing the buzzer for Patrick’s place. At his feet was a cardboard box filled with all of Patrick’s stuff. It seemed pathetic, almost pitiful, seeing it now. It had seemed like so much when it had all been piled on his bed last week, but it had been ridiculously easy to pack it all into one box. 

Frankly, Yuri wasn’t sure about how he felt about that, but it wasn’t something he let himself dwell on for an extended period of time. He rang the buzzer again, and finally, the door clicked open. With huff, and a roll of his eyes, Yuri yanked the door open. He held it open with one foot as he hefted up the box and then slipped inside. 

He had always liked Patrick’s building. It was old. No elevators. The front entrance opened onto the narrow stairwell. The floor was covered with some giant slabs of pebbly tile, or maybe it was linoleum. It was hard for him to tell, not one for interior decorating. Tight mailboxes lined one wall, apartment numbers stamped onto ornate plating. The iron railings were beautifully crafted works of art, curling into vines and flowers. Bumblebees had been welded on here and there. A crystal chandelier cast dim golden light over the entire scene. 

Today, however, Yuri stormed past all of it, doing his best not to drop the box. He had helped Patrick pick this place out. He had stood with Patrick in this very foyer talking about the pros and cons of living here. And once Patrick had moved in here, after how many date nights had Patrick dragged him up the stairs, pausing to kiss him as often as he could? Truthfully, Yuri had lived here as much as Patrick had. He knew the combo on Patrick’s mailbox. He knew the keycode to enter the front door. The key Patrick had given him was tucked into his jeans pocket. The only reason why had bothered to wait for the buzzer at all was as a courtesy, and, perhaps, as a way to distance himself from all of this. 

A way to pretend their relationship hadn’t mattered to him as much as it had. 

He opened the door to the third-floor corridor with his elbow, still carefully clutching the box in his arms. There really was no easy way to carry it; it was too heavy to carry by just holding onto the top edges, but too big to easily wrap his arms around too. Yuri was almost happy to get rid of it. 

He strode down the corridor quickly, passing the doors of neighbors he had gotten to know over the years. Brennan and Noah in 301, two best friends living in one of the only two-bedroom apartments in the building. Haley in 302 who loved Disney more than life itself. Caitlin, in 303, who was a year younger than he and Patrick, but still a little like their grandma. Aimee in 304 who was always having band practice. He shut them all out until he came to 308. Patrick’s door. He shifted the box to one arm, balancing it on his knee, and knocked. 

For a long moment, there was no answer, and Yuri was just gearing up to knock again, but then the door swung open. 

Patrick looked...exhausted. Worn thin by the world and all it asked of him. He was wearing a familiar old worn out cross country shirt and a pair of holey sweats. He didn’t smile when he saw Yuri, he just pulled the door further open and stepped to the side. Yuri marched in fiercely, around the corner, and then dropped the box on the little table. Patrick was leaning on the wall between the door and the kitchen, watching Yuri dully, when Yuri reeled around.

“Do you have any of my stuff?” Yuri demanded. 

Patrick shrugged, and rubbed at his eyes. “Probably. I started to check and never finished.” 

Yuri scoffed softly. 

“Fine,” he said, “do you mind if I check.”

Patrick gestured to the open bedroom door as if to say “be my guest.” Yuri stormed off. 

The bedroom was a mess. The bed was unmade. There was a bowl of half finished cereal on the nightstand. Two familiar looking balloons—one green, one silver—bobbed in the corner, almost all the way to the floor now. Laundry spilled out of the closet in a small avalanche when Yuri pushed open the doors. He glanced down at it with dismay, and the back over at Patrick, who was leaning in the doorway now, arms crossed around his chest as if he were trying to physically hold himself together. 

And then Yuri took it all in again, P’s-Patrick’s haggard look in Graeme’s the other day, the tone of his voice every time they had talked, the state of his apartment, the way he dressed and held himself now. They were all flags that Yuri kicked himself for not picking up on sooner. They had dated for three years after all, and he had known Patrick for longer. He didn’t know how he had been so blind. 

Except, he had been angry, and hurt, and sometimes, your own problems were all it took to make you brush aside the problems of others. 

“You okay, P-chan?” Yuri asked gently. 

Patrick shrugged. He was staring at the bed as if there was something deeply intriguing about the wrinkled sheets. 

“I’m fine,” Patrick said quietly. 

“You don’t seem fine,” Yuri said. 

There was something heartbreaking in the way that Patrick just shook his head, shut his eyes, closed himself off from Yuri, from the world. 

“I’m fine,” he whispered. 

“When was the last time you went running?” Yuri asked. 

That had always been his test question. Running was Patrick’s...not quite his happy time, but his time for just himself. Especially in the morning. Running with the dawn had always been Patrick’s favorite time to self reflect, to look back on the day and week before and prepare himself for the day and week ahead. He was religious about it. Sometimes, if he and Yuri stayed up especially late, he slept in, but he had always usually been off the moment he had managed to disentangle himself from the sheets and Yuri’s arms. When Patrick didn’t take that time for himself, when he physically and emotionally didn’t have the strength to do it, that’s how Yuri had always known when he needed to be worried. 

And he was thinking now, just looking at this light evidence of the state of Patrick’s life, that perhaps someone should be worried. 

Patrick was silent for a long time, either avoiding the question or thinking, Yuri wasn’t certain. He was about to walk closer, to make Patrick look at him and ask the question again, when Patrick finally answered. 

“I don’t know,” Patrick said. His voice was shaky, almost scared. 

“Have you been taking your meds?” Yuri asked. 

That was a delicate question. Not Patrick’s favorite to be asked, Yuri knew, but it was one that needed to be asked right now. 

Patrick bit his lip. He still wasn’t looking at Yuri. 

And then he shook his head, and Yuri’s heart dropped out. 

He knew that meds were not make or break for mental illness. He managed his anxiety without them. But he knew they helped his ex-boyfriend to manage his depression. He knew that, although Patrick was not having trouble with depression all the time, taking his meds regularly helped him when episodes did pop up. 

And he knew, just by looking and listening to Patrick now, that Patrick was in the middle of one of the worst depressive episodes Yuri had ever seen him face. 

“Have you been going to Brian Time?” Yuri asked, joking lightly, using the nickname Patrick had come up with his therapy session. 

Again, Patrick shook his head. 

“Just seemed like too much,” he said. 

And now, Yuri did step forward, did reach out, and cradle Patrick’s cheek, and make his friend look at him. 

For a minute, Patrick managed to meet Yuri’s eyes. Patrick’s eyes were soft and brown, darker around the edges, but fading into a gentle hazel towards the pupil, and once, Yuri had thought he would be able spend days just melting in them. Now though, he was looking for answers. Patrick, as if knowing this, looked away, turned away. 

“You don’t have to worry about me, Yurs,” Patrick said. 

The use of the nickname he had invented for Yuri, years and years ago, something he had only ever used between them, made Yuri’s heart break. 

“Just because we’re not dating anymore doesn’t mean I don’t still care about you,” Yuri said. 

“I was awful to you,” Patrick said. “You shouldn’t.”

“I don’t care,” Yuri said. 

It wasn’t entirely true. He did care about what Patrick had done to end their relationship. The reason why Yuri hurt so deeply about all of it directly related to how much he had cared about Patrick and what they had had. But at the same time, that awfulness did not prevent Yuri from caring now. He wasn’t so cold hearted as to turn a blind eye to a friend that was so obviously in need. 

Patrick huffed out a little laugh, and went to walk away, back into the living room, but halfway through the motion seemed to change his mind. Instead, he ended up sinking down the wall until he was sitting on the ground. Yuri was quick to join him. 

“I didn’t deserve you,” Patrick said. His voice cracked at the end. 

Unbidden, memories rose to Yuri’s mind. Spending late nights with Victor instead of curled up in bed with Patrick. Dancing in a club at worlds, shirt gone along with all of his cares, and kissing Victor with all the strength in every ragged and broken piece of his soul. He had never talked to anyone about it. Not even Victor, who seemed determined to deny that it had ever happened at all. 

“Sometimes,” Yuri said, “I don’t think I deserved you very much either.”

After he had come home from worlds, Patrick had been there to greet him, to wrap Yuri up in his arms, to press kisses and congratulations to Yuri’s temples, and other places, later. 

Patrick didn’t respond to that, just looked blankly at the carpet. 

“I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” he said. 

“Life is messy,” Yuri said harshly, “some people just get a greater share of it. That’s not your fault.”

Patrick sighed, and looked up at Yuri dully. 

“Why are you always so determined to see the best in people, Yurs?” he asked. “Most of us don’t deserve it. I cheated on you. I betrayed your trust. I threw everything we had away. I’m not a good person. Stop trying to make me feel better; I don’t deserve it.”

For a second, Yuri didn’t say anything. And then, the floodgates opened, just a little, but it was enough. 

“I’m not saying you didn’t hurt me, P,” he said. “You did. You broke my heart. And every time I look at you and remember that we’re not ‘us’ anymore it breaks a little more. We were  _ so good  _ together. You were everything I ever wanted. 

“And yeah. Cheating on me was a really sucky thing. It was the biggest dick move I’ve ever seen you make. But it doesn’t define you, P. You’re...excitable, and scatterbrained, and a little bit careless sometimes, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s part of who you are. And good or bad, I like who you are. I—” 

Yuri cut himself off before he could go any farther, blushing a little. He wasn’t still in love with Patrick—he knew that. They could never get back together because Yuri knew that if they did, in the back of his head, he’d always wonder if Patrick would prefer to be with his soulmate, and that was an anxiety he didn’t need in his life. But that didn’t stop him from loving and caring about who Patrick was as a person. Again, he knew the reason why it hurt so much to see Patrick now was because of how much he loved, how much he cared. 

“I don’t like who I am,” Patrick said. “I’m awful.”

“Sometimes, I think I’m no good either,” Yuri said. 

“Yeah,” Patrick conceded. He pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his head on them, looking away from Yuri, as he muttered the rest, “but I bet you don’t wake up and go through your day and go to bed and lie awake wishing you weren’t yourself.”

Yuri didn’t have anything to say to that. In part because Patrick was right. If anything, he was haunted by a wish he could be  _ better _ , as good as the people he looked up to and admired. He wished he could beat the little voice in his head that said he would never be good enough. But he never wished that he wasn’t himself, or that this wasn’t his life. 

Patrick lifted up his head and rested his chin on his knees. With a start, Yuri realized his ex was crying. Quietly, but still. There were tears streaking slowly down the soft brown skin of Patrick’s cheeks, past his freckles, and splattering on his knees. 

“Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t  _ me _ ,” Patrick said.  

His voice was so raw and broken when he said it that it left Yuri aching on his behalf. For so long, Patrick had been his shield against the world, and Yuri had tried to do the same for Patrick, but then again, how could you shield them from themselves? How could you spare them from the nightmares that haunted their footseps by day, and which chased them to bed at night? 

Slowly, Yuri stood up, and then he held out a hand, palm up in an open invitation, to his ex-boyfriend. 

“Come on,” Yuri said.  

“What?” Patrick asked, tilting his head back to look up at Yuri above him. 

Yuri wiggled his hand, just to emphasize that it was there. 

“Come on,” he said again. “We’re going to get your prescription filled. And then we’re going to call Brian. And then we’re going to figure out how to get through this, one step at a time.”

“I don’t—”

“ _ I don’t care _ ,” Yuri said emphatically, taking time to carefully enunciate every word. “You’re my friend, and I care about you, and you need my help, whether you appreciate that or not, so I’m going to help  you,, whether you ask for it or not. Okay?”

Patrick’s shoulders slumped in grim acceptance. 

“Alright,” he said. 

And then he took Yuri’s hand, and allowed Yuri to pull him to his feet. 

“I’m not saying I’m not still upset,” Yuri said, “but this trumps being upset. Do you get that?”

Patrick blinked at him. 

“You are easily the most unselfish person I have ever met,” Patrick said. “It defies explanation.”

“Most of the really interesting things in the universe do,” Yuri said with a little smile. “That’s what makes life worth living.”

Patrick shook his head in disbelief, but there was a small, tired smile, pinching at the corners of his mouth. 

“Whatever you say, Starboy. Whatever you fucking say.”


	4. Chapter 4

They sat in the parking lot of the Walgreens after they had picked up Patrick’s prescription, passing a bag of red vines back and forth. Patrick sat in the passenger seat, folded in his seat so his feet still managed to rest on the dash. Yuri had wrapped his arms around the steering wheel. The ridges on the back dug into his arms, and he was resting his chin on the top of the wheel, staring at nothing. It was such a familiar routine. Familiar, but...different now. A lot of things were. Had been since everything that had happened this summer, this spring. 

He and Patrick had been falling apart for a very long time. Yuri just hadn’t realized it until after Patrick came home. 

Patrick rattled his pill bottle and Yuri glanced over, just to see what his ex was up to now. Patrick, for his part, was lost in his own thoughts, and staring at the orange bottle in his hand with a dark intensity. Yuri was about to open his mouth, say something, ask Patrick what he was up to, but then Patrick glanced over at him too and Yuri stopped himself. 

“I hate this,” Patrick said, looking back at the pills. 

Yuri didn’t have to ask. It was a familiar conversation. 

“I wish I could just be…I don’t know. I wish I wasn’t crazy,” Patrick said. 

“You’re not crazy, P,” Yuri said softly. 

“Normal people don’t have to take anti-depressants,” Patrick said. 

“Doesn’t make you crazy,” Yuri said. 

Patrick was quiet for a long time. That was how this conversation always went when things got bad like this. Patrick pronounced how much he despised his own existence, particularly the part where he was depressed. Yuri tried to talk him down. Patrick spent a long time not arguing, but not listening either. Just being quiet. 

Yuri went back to watching the people scuttling from the cars to the doors of the Walgreens. He took another red vine.

“Is it true that you met your soulmate?” Patrick asked. 

Yuri jerked in surprise. 

“What?” he asked, looking over at Patrick in shock. 

“Did you meet your soulmate?” Patrick asked, carefully enunciating every word.  

“Who told you that?” Yuri asked. 

“Victor,” Patrick said. “Is it true?”

Yuri’s mind reeled. Victor had never mentioned telling Patrick about...them. When had Patrick found out? When had Victor had the chance to tell him? And why hadn’t Patrick brought it up until now? 

“Oh, um…” Yuri glanced away, back at the parking lot. He needed to think about this. Unfortunately, that was the one thing he didn’t have the time or space to do right now. 

“Yeah,” Yuri said, eventually. “Yeah I did.”

Patrick was silent for a beat. Yuri didn’t know what else to say. If he  _ should  _ say anything else. He was still scrambling to figure out why Victor might have told Patrick any of this to begin with. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Patrick whispered. 

That was such a loaded question. Different, somehow, than when Victor had demanded the same answer last spring. But hearing it asked now was part of the reason Yuri hadn’t wanted to tell Patrick. He had always known it would probably come someday. And he knew now, regardless of his experience with trying to explain it to Victor, that nothing he ever said would justify himself to Patrick.

Just like nothing Patrick could ever say about meeting Nolan could justify his actions to Yuri. 

“I didn’t want to complicate things between us,” Yuri said quietly. “I liked the way we were. And I knew...I knew you would never believe that I had willingly chosen you over him, even though it was true. I loved you. You were...everything to me. Everything I ever wanted. And he was just a stranger. Less than a stranger. A name.” 

Yuri glanced over at Patrick in time to see his ex shake his head. 

“I just...how long did you know? When did you even meet him?”

“When I was nineteen,” Yuri said. “It was a long time ago. It’s no big deal.”

Patrick started to nod, focus shifting elsewhere, and then he stopped. Paused and tilted his head like he did whenever something didn’t quite add up. Patrick, Yuri had come to note with some bemusement over the years, was incredibly unobservant. But he was also faster at putting two and two together than anyone Yuri had ever known, once he had all the pieces to a problem. Yuri’s heart froze in blind terror of whatever it was Patrick had just realized. 

“Victor said he was there when you met your soulmate,” Patrick said slowly, and now Yuri’s heart dropped out because he knew exactly where this was going. 

Patrick looked back up at him with a steady gaze. Yuri swallowed. 

“Yuri,” Patrick said. “You didn’t know Victor when you were nineteen.”

Yuri opened his mouth, trying to come up with some feeble defence, and came up short. He had nothing. He was found out. Glum, he turned and rested his head on the steering wheel again. 

“Holy shit,” Patrick whispered. 

Yuri stayed still, even when he heard and felt Patrick shifting on the bench seat besides him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Patrick sitting, very close, on his knees next to him. 

“Yuri,” Patrick said. Yuri could hear the smile in his voice. “Is there something you want to tell me? Something about you and Victor, maybe?”

“No,” Yuri croaked. 

“Yuri,” Patrick asked, “are you and Victor soulmates?”

For several seconds, Yuri said nothing, just listened to his heart pounding in his ears. He could feel his facing going red in an inadvertent confession. 

“Maybe,” he said at last.

Patrick laughed and it sounded a little hysterical.  

“Oh my God,” Patrick breathed. “Oh my God.”

“See?” Yuri snapped, turning to look at where Patrick had settled back into the passenger seat. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you!” 

Patrick pressed both hands to his mouth, almost like a prayer, like he often did when he had too many thoughts that he did not know how to thread together into words. Yuri waited until Patrick had finished processing everything, and then Patrick glanced back over at him. 

“Does he know?” Patrick asked. 

Yuri interested himself very suddenly with a piece of lint caught on the seat besides him. 

“Holy fuck,” Patrick said. “Did he—the pool.”

Patrick’s voice was filled with defeat. Yuri found greater interest in the piece of lint. 

“He saw your tattoo and then he almost wiped out he was so surprised. And he knows you know too. God, Yuri, ever thought you were going to mention that to me?”

“I didn’t want to make things complicated,” Yuri said again, very quietly. 

“Seems like you managed that pretty well anyways,” Patrick said. 

He sighed and Yuri bit his lip. Patrick was right, Yuri knew that much. He  _ had  _ gotten himself into a complicated mess. He had known that before today. Ages ago, even, back when he had first admitted to Victor that he had known. 

“I know I have no right to be, but I’m kinda pissed at you right now,” Patrick huffed. “Damn, Yuri. Why didn’t you ever say anything to me?”

Yuri scratched away the lint, then stared at the place where it had been for several breaths before he answered. 

“We had just started dating when I found out, it seemed like,” he said, looking up at Patrick. “I didn’t want to mess things up because I really liked you. Besides, he didn’t know, and he was famous, so I never thought it would be a big deal anyways.”

“Alright,” Patrick said shrugging, “Fine. I don’t agree with you, but fine. What about when he moved here, ever thought of giving me a heads up then?”

“When he moved here,” Yuri said slowly, “I was in love with you. Nothing had changed. And I figured he’d pack up and leave eventually anyways, and that he’d be gone before anyone ever found out.”

Patrick shook his head. 

“Damn,” he whispered. “I’m extremely hacked off with you right now, but at the same time, I’m not at all surprised. I just…” he shook his head again. 

“Well,” Yuri said, trying not to let any of his true feelings bleed into his voice, “he’s gone now, so I guess it really doesn’t make any difference.”

He turned back to the wheel and started the car again. Patrick snorted. 

“You’re fucking with me,” he said. 

“What?” Yuri asked, glancing over at him. 

“Of course it makes a difference,” Patrick said. 

“No,” Yuri said firmly, “it doesn’t.”

“Yeah it does, Yurs,” Patrick said. “You  _ lied _ to me.”

“I did not!”

“Yeah, ya did. By omission, but that’s still lying. We were in a relationship. That’s the kind of details you tell the person you’re in a relationship with,” Patrick snapped. 

“You’re the one who cheated on me,” Yuri snapped back. 

Patrick reeled back, as if Yuri had just slapped him. And then shook his head, his frustration and his hurt clear on his face. 

“Yeah, I did, but at least I told you about it when I saw you again. The only reason I didn’t call you right away was because I figured me telling you I had slept with my soulmate was something you wouldn’t want to hear over the phone,” Patrick said. “You sat on this for years. And you l—”

Patrick cut himself off at the look of on Yuri’s face, blinked in surprise, and then made the strange little face he sometimes made when he realized that one of his realizations might not be taken so well by somebody else. 

“You know what, forget it. Just take me home,” Patrick said, waving a hand towards the road. He rested his head glumly on the window. 

For a moment, Yuri just stared at Patrick, wondering what it was his ex had been about to say before he had cut himself off. But then Yuri rolled his eyes and put the car into drive. Patrick didn’t know what he was talking about. Patrick didn’t understand the full reality of the situation. Patrick was a boneheaded idiot who thought he knew more than he actually did. 

But he didn’t, because he and Yuri had been falling apart for months. At least since their fight that spring, but maybe before then too. Yuri had actively tried to keep them together by withholding his information about Victor. The minute Patrick had met his soulmate, he had torn them apart. Nothing, absolutely nothing, that Patrick did, or said, or thought, or pointed out about Yuri’s actions would somehow make them equal. Absolutely, assuredly not. 

They drove home in silence. When Yuri had finished parking the truck next to the curb, Patrick leaned over without looking at him, pulled the keys out of the ignition, and then hopped out with a mumbled, see you later. He slammed the door behind him and slunk up the path to the front walk. Yuri watched him go through the window, until he saw the door close behind Patrick, and then slumped down in the seat. 

He hadn’t even gotten his stuff back. He’d just had a very upsetting afternoon helping Patrick piece his life back together. And for what? To be snapped at for never telling Patrick that Victor was his soulmate? It was so cosmically unfair that Yuri wanted to scream. He settled for slamming the heel of his hand down on the steering wheel. 

(But gently, because he didn’t want to accidentally hit the horn). 

(And because it occurred to him that he might hurt himself more than it was worth doing that). 

With a huff, he pulled out his phone and opened a new message. He tapped the sides for a few seconds, trying to think of what to say, trying to think of how to begin to put his thoughts in order, and then he settled for the simple and hit send.

Task done, he cracked open his door and slid out of the cab. He was careful to hit the lock button before he close the door. Pontiac was usually a pretty safe place, but it never hurt to be careful. 

A breeze rushed down the street and pushed through his hair. It smelled like rain, and for a minute, Yuri was reminded of eating  _ katsudon _ on the cabin steps with Victor, listening to the thunder roll in and just...talking about their lives. It had been the first time they’d been alone together since World’s but he hadn’t been nervous. He had forgotten even, for a short time, about what had happened to Maria. He’d just been happy. Happy after spending so long feeling uneasy about what was even still holding he and Patrick together. He’d been able to set all of that aside that night. And it had been nice. It had been really, really nice. 

He turned and started back down the street, towards home. “I miss you.” That’s what he had finally decided to text Victor. He hadn’t said anything about Patrick finding out about them, or what Patrick had told him that Victor had said. It would have been too complicated to explain why he had been with Patrick and talking about all that in the first place.  Just… _ I miss you _ . 

Victor hadn’t replied, but Yuri wasn’t surprised. It was almost 5:30 now, which meant it was after midnight in Petersburg. Somehow, Yuri had ended up spending a good chunk of the afternoon with Patrick, pretending that nothing was wrong with them. Realizing that left him feeling exhausted, and worn out inside. He wasn’t ready to forgive Patrick. He wasn’t sure he was even capable of forgiveness for what had happened yet. And now...that choice had essentially be robbed of him. And he’d been dumped with having to deal with Patrick’s judgement too. 

It was too much. All of it. Too much to deal with in one day. He just wanted to go back to the cabin that summer, to days and nights spent hanging out on the beach with Victor, back to a time when things had stopped seeming so complicated. 

OOO

“I have your stuff.” 

Yuri glanced away from watching Derek, the GSA president, fiddling with the slides for the meeting at the front of the room at the sound of Patrick’s voice. 

His ex boyfriend was standing at a respectful distance away from him, leaning with his arms crossed against the row of tables that Yuri was sitting on. He was studiously watching Derek, who truly was struggling with the slides, as if his words really hadn’t mattered that much. 

“What?” Yuri asked. 

“You’re stuff,” Patrick said, glancing over at him now. He was still frowning a little. “You never got it after you came over last week. I was feeling halfway decent today so I went through everything and put it together. It’s in my truck. It seemed kind of rude to just walk over and dump in front of you at the meeting.”

“Oh,” Yuri said, turning back to watching Derek. Theia had finally stood up from where she was sitting at the front to help him. “Thanks,” he said. 

“Mmmm,” Patrick said. 

Theia finished helping Derek. The slides filled the screen. Derek leaned forward to say something to Theia and she laughed. 

“I’m sorry I was such a mess the other day,” Patrick said. 

Yuri sighed. 

“Patrick, I told you—”

“It’s not fine,” Patrick snapped. “You shouldn’t have to deal with that shit. I’m not your problem anymore.” 

This time, when Yuri looked over at his ex boyfriend, he took the time to  _ really  _ look, to take in all the minutiae of how Patrick looked and held himself. He marked the fact that Patrick really had gotten black, flame painted converse. He marked the fact that Patrick looked like he’d showered recently, and that his shirt looked clean. He marked the fact that Patrick had bothered to wear something other than a pair of sweats and a ratty old shirt or sweatshirt. But he also marked the fact that Patrick still looked exhausted, held himself like if he was actively fighting just falling over, and sounded like he’d rather be anywhere but here. 

“How you feeling, P?” Yuri asked gently. 

Patrick shrugged. “Better, I guess,” he said. “Saw Brian yesterday. Might move my time. Friday’s are easier for me this semester.”

“How’s Brian?” Yuri asked. 

For a moment, Patrick’s stance didn’t shift, but then defeat slumped his shoulders. 

“He’s good,” Patrick said. “His daughter started looking at colleges this fall and he’s freaking out. I don’t know. It’s the same as always. Brian time. We both agree that I’m an idiot who needs to think about my actions more, but we talking everything through and...yeah.” Patrick paused to smile a little. 

“He also says that you are an angel and thanks you for getting me back on track.”

Yuri smiled too. 

“Tell Brian thank you,” Yuri said. 

“I will,” Patrick replied. 

Derek started going through the slides. Theia, who at some point must have noticed that Patrick and Yuri were talking, wove her way through the rows of seats to come sit by them. 

“Hey, boo,” she said, giving Yuri a quick half squeeze. 

She gave Patrick a very measured look. 

“Why didn’t you call me?” she asked. 

Patrick frowned, shifted away from them both. 

“What?” he asked. 

“Yuri told me what happened last week. You shouldn’t have dragged him into that. You should have called me.”

Patrick jaw dropped, just a tad. And then he blinked, clearly a little hurt. 

“Theia…”Yuri started. 

“No,” Patrick said, cutting him off, “Theia, I agree entirely. I  _ shouldn’t  _ have dragged him into my mess. But the thing is, I didn’t. I tried to get him to leave. He refused. So go ahead and blame me for my life being a complete fucking mess, but don’t for a second dare think that I  _ purposefully  _ dragged Yuri into it.”

Theia frowned at Patrick, than glanced up at Yuri. 

“Is this true?” she asked. 

He nodded. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t mention that earlier. I didn’t even mean to tell you about it all, actually, but you’d asked if I’d seen him lately, and, well…”

“Hmph,” Theia hummed. 

“I feel like a kid who’s been made to sit in the corner and think about what they’ve done,” Patrick muttered.

“That’s exactly what’s going on here,” Theia said. “Have you thought about what you’ve done, Patrick? Have you come to appreciate why it was wrong?”

Yuri sighed. He loved Theia, but sometimes, she took mom-mode too seriously. It usually resulted in she and Patrick squabbling, which they very clearly had started to do. 

“Yes,  _ Mom, _ ” Patrick snapped, “for the record, I regretted what happened almost immediately after the fact. I’m sorry I’m such a screwed up mess, are you happy?”

“I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” Theia said, raising up her hands. “Yuri’s the one you hurt. Have you apologized to him yet?”

Patrick hadn’t in fact, apologized in the traditional sense, and the prospect of getting an apology was an intriguing concept, like if Patrick had not broken Yuri’s heart, but merely one of his plates, or misplaced one of Yuri’s socks. 

Still, though, he was not intrigued enough to want to be dragged into their little battle of wills. He focused intently on the overview of the Trevor Project that Derek was giving, even though he had heard it several times before. 

Patrick scoffed. 

“Yuri,” he started. 

Derek was talking about his own experience with the organization. Yuri listened for any variations from the expected telling. 

“I am sorry that I cheated on you with Nolan Laoch while I was in Rio. I appreciate why this hurt you, and I am sorry that it caused us to break up; I wasn’t thinking, and if I had been, I never would have done it. It was never my intention to cheat, or to break up with you, but I am, unfortunately, a worthless idiot.”

“Good boy,” Theia said. “Yuri, were you paying attention to that? Do you accept Patrick’s apology?”

At that, Yuri turned at looked at Theia incredulously, and then glanced back at Patrick. The look on Patrick’s face said enough; Patrick was as frustrated with Theia kicking into their business as Yuri currently was, but he had no power here to kick Theia out. That ball lay in Yuri’s court, because he was the wronged party. He was the one Theia believed she needed to help. He turned back to Theia. 

“Thee,” he said carefully, “I really appreciate what you’re trying to do here, but please, stay out of it. Yeah, Patrick did a shitty thing, but I don’t need you to intervene. I don’t need you to be upset with him on my behalf. I can handle it on my own. You’re not  _ actually _ my mom.”

Theia’s jaw dropped. Behind him, Yuri thought he heard Patrick attempt to contain a snicker. 

“I’m just trying to help you,” she said. 

“I know,” Yuri said patiently. “But this isn’t something you can help.”

Theia stared at him for a beat longer, then snapped her jaw shut. She sent one last, withering glare at Patrick before storming off. Yuri turned back to Derek’s presentation. Patrick settled back down next to him. 

“I am sorry,” Patrick said, “about all of it. And I do regret it. I just—I laid awake the entire time afterwards trying to get my mind in order and then it finally hit me what I had just done, and Yuri, it’s been a while since I’ve hated myself that much. I think I freaked Nolan out a little bit by how quickly I scrambled to get out of there.” 

Derek had moved on to talking about StS2. This, at least, was newer information, but in spite of himself, Yuri couldn’t help just shift more of his attention towards Patrick. 

“I’m sorry that that’s what caused up to break up, and I wish we could have done it differently,” Patrick said, “because, I think no matter what either of us said, we were going to break up eventually, and maybe that’s all on me, and maybe you disagree, but that’s the way I see it.”

For a minute, Yuri stayed silent, rolling all of this over in his head. 

“I think you’re right,” he said quietly, “I think we would have broken up anyways, and yeah, I think it probably would have been because of you, but P, that doesn’t excuse what you did, and I don’t forgive you.”

“That’s fair,” Patrick said softly. 

“Did Nolan know that you were dating me?” Yuri asked. 

“No,” Patrick said. “No, it was all me being an idiot and not knowing how to break it to him. I guess you did that a little bit better than I did.”

Yuri snorted. “I think we both made it very obvious that I was in a relationship before Victor ever found out what we were.”

At that, Patrick chuckled a little. Instinctively more than anything else, Yuri glanced over at his ex boyfriend and smiled. When Patrick noticed, he smiled back. 

Yuri had no idea how they were ever going to move past this. He wasn’t sure they ever truly could. But it occurred to him then that he wanted too, because before anything else, Patrick had always been his best friend, the person who cheered him up when he was feeling down and stayed up until three am talking him down and out of the places where his thought spirals had taken him. But, he had fallen out of love with Patrick, sitting in the truck the night after the Olympics, when his ex boyfriend had made his confession. Yuri would never, ever be able to look at Patrick and see the person he had once loved ever again. The past few weeks...they had been a mourning, of sorts, for everything that he had lost. And he would continue to mourn, but not as much. As deeply.

Right now...right now he kind of just wanted his best friend back, even if he wasn’t entirely certain who Patrick was as a person anymore. 

Patrick, as if sensing this held out his hand. 

“Truce?” he asked. “I’m not asking you to forgive me, and frankly, I’m still a little hacked off at you, but truce? Just as we start figuring things out.”

It was hard, to look at that hand and not see taking it as a signification that he had forgiven Patrick for what Patrick had done, or that he ever would, but Yuri made himself take it all the same. The was acceptance. This was acceptance that Patrick had done a terrible, terrible thing and that Patrick was well and truly sorry for it. This was a step forward. And, well…

“I’m sorry too,” Yuri said, “for not telling you about Victor. I know you don’t understand why, and it’s hard to say I regret doing it, but I’m sorry that I hurt you because of that.”

Patrick nodded. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly. 

Yuri just nodded. Dropped Patrick’s hand. He was just starting to turn back to Derek when the man called his and Patrick’s names. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Yuri saw Patrick tilt his head in interest, and perhaps in question as well. 

“What?” Yuri asked. 

“Are you two willing to do a double again as an incentive at StS2 this year?” Derek asked. 

Yuri looked over at Patrick. Patrick looked over at him, lips in a tight, thoughtful line. 

“What do you think?” Yuri asked him. 

Patrick shrugged. “If you don’t have any objections, then I don’t. Maybe...maybe this will be good for us. Spend some one on one time together, working for a greater good, figuring out how to be...friends, again.”

Yuri nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Yeah. Maybe it will be good.”

Patrick smiled. Yuri smiled back. 

“Sure!” Patrick shouted, turning back to the front. “Best to give the people what they want, right?”

The room filled with hoots and hollers. Yuri just bit his lip, and did his best not to second guess the commitment he had just locked himself into. 


	5. Chapter 5

“Hey,” Theia’s voice echoed down the line. 

Victor smiled, happy to hear her voice. It was a gorgeous afternoon, fall sweeping out in full bloom and turning the crowns of the trees in the park red and orange and gold. He had been watching the progress of the changing leaves from his apartment window every morning over breakfast. It looked, sometimes, as though the dawn light had set the city in fire. Now, though, as he walked back home across the river, as the wind swept through his hair and roared in his ears, he shivered a little and smiled. 

“Hello Theia,” he said. “How have you been? How is everybody?”

He knew, in a general sense, how Yuri was. He had been getting regular updates on classes, on Yuri’s programs, on how he and Phichit were spending their days. There had been a little text, just a few days ago, that simply read “I miss you,” and even though Victor had sent an “I miss you too” in response, neither of them had stopped to dwell on the distance between them since. 

Theia sighed, and Victor knew that there was a lot coming. 

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just—I don’t know. Maria’s coming up this weekend, so, yay, but...Patrick and Yuri are driving me nuts.”

At this, Victor perked up a little. Yuri hadn’t mentioned his ex in any of their exchanges, not since he had told Victor about running into Patrick in Graeme’s more than a week ago. 

“What happened?” Victor asked. 

“I don’t even know. I haven’t gotten the full story from either of them. Just that they ended up spending the afternoon together because Patrick was a mess and although he and Yuri both say that he didn’t make Yuri help him, I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“Oh,” Victor said. That was...news. 

“Victor, I’m just...I’m so mad at him. Like, what kind of an asshole cheats on his boyfriend? Especially when his boyfriend is Yuri, who is literally the sweetest, kindest person I have ever met. And like, I want them to make up because they’re both my friends but at the same time I’m just  _ so fucking pissed.” _

“Right,” Victor said. 

When Theia had texted him today during practice asking if he wanted to talk later, he had not expected the call to be made into an all out rant session. He didn’t know if he was thankful he was being let in on some of what was going on with Yuri’s life, or if he was upset that Theia had called him, but hadn’t really  _ called him.  _

“But then like, Patrick was talking to Yuri at the GSA meeting yesterday and I walk over because I figure, ‘hey, Yuri probably needs a save,’ but nooooo, they’re just fine. So I try and be civil, and I think, ‘self, I bet Patrick hasn’t even apologized yet,’ which by the way, he hadn’t, so I get him to and Yuri has the gall the be upset with  _ me. _ Me. I’m not the one who cheated on him! God.”

“Wait,” Victor said pausing, “why was Yuri upset with you?”

“Apparently, he thinks I’m butting in where I don’t need to be.”

Victor could practically hear Theia rolling her eyes at the line. 

“I’m the mom!” Theia said. “I make people make up! I stick unruly kids in the corner! Sometimes I butt in on their business even when they don’t think they need me because they actually usually do!”

He was standing about halfway across the bridge. The wind was stiffer here, enough that it drowned out some of what Theia was saying. He could see the river, rushing towards him, and then under the bridge, and then on, out of view, towards the sea. He wished he could be there, in Pontiac, to see this all playing out himself. He wished that Yuri had told him about this himself. 

But then, at the same time, Yuri usually kept things to himself when he thought it was for the best. Maybe there was a good reason why he did not want Theia interfering with his relationship, or lack of one, with Patrick. As much as Victor had hated it, the reasoning behind why Yuri hadn’t told him about their bond had been sound. He would ask Yuri about this, later, when they saw each other at Skate America, but for now…

“Theia, maybe Yuri’s right,” Victor said. 

“What?” Theia asked. She sounded personally affronted. 

“Just because Yuri and Patrick have a problem doesn’t mean you have to solve it. Sometimes, it’s best to just step away and let people deal with their own issues. And you don’t need to be angry with Patrick. He cheated on Yuri, not you, after all,” Victor said. 

He did his best to sound reasonable. Someone who wasn’t criticizing, just offering another point of view. 

“But Yuri’s my  _ friend, _ ” Theia said, “And Patrick  _ wronged him.” _

“Patrick is also your friend, Thee,” Victor reminded her. 

He thought back to what Theia had said earlier, about Patrick being a mess and Yuri needing to help him. He thought back to all the times last year when Patrick had just seemed a little...off. Like a shadow of himself. 

“And maybe, he needs you right now. You and Yuri,” he continued. “I’m not saying that you should just forget what happened, but it’s also not your place to decide to forgive him or not. It’s Yuri’s.”

Theia harrumphed on the other end of the line. 

“But I want to be able to help them,” she said, “and Yuri basically just told me to fuck off.”

“Maybe the best way to help them is to support them through all of this,” Victor said. “Trust them. If they need help working things out, they’ll come to you, but otherwise…”

He trailed off. Theia sighed. 

“I just don’t know what to do,” she said. “I guess...I don’t know. I guess it’s naive, but I never thought they would actually break up, you know? Like I knew P was an idealist who wanted to meet his soulmate, yada yada yada, but I never thought that would get in the way of them being together.”

“It can be hard to adapt to the unexpected,” Victor said with a smile, “like having to move back to a foreign country after you had made a new home somewhere else.”

At that, Theia laughed. 

“How is St. Petersburg?” she asked. 

He reached the end of the bridge and glanced around at the cars rushing by on the street before turning and heading upriver, towards home. 

“The same,” he said. “Even when it changes, it stays the same. If anything, I’m the one who’s changed.”

“How do you figure?” Theia asked. 

“We grow as people, even when we don’t realize it,” Victor said. “I don’t know. I love Petersburg. I always will. It’s home, and when I’m not here, I miss it even when I don’t realize it. But I also miss Pontiac right now, and I miss seeing all of you everyday, and sometimes, I miss the quiet, and the stars.”

Theia laughed. “I don’t think living in a college town is ever truly ‘quiet,’” she said, “ but I can see what you mean. It must be nice to be home though? Back where things are familiar, and you don’t have to put up with weird American culture?”

“Sure,” Victor said, “but that doesn’t keep me from missing all of you sometimes.”

“Fair enough,” Theia said. “Fair enough. Hey! By the way, before I forget, I think Yuri and Phichit mentioned assignments had gone out for the Grand Prix series? Where are you competing—just so we can watch at least when you’re on.”

“Skate America and Rostelecom,” Victor replied smoothly. “Same as last year.”

“Yuri’s at Skate America again this year too!” Theia said. “Oh, that’ll be exciting. You’ll get to see him. I’m jealous.”

Victor laughed. He knew where Yuri would be already, but hearing Theia’s excitement made him feel good all the same. And besides, he liked the idea that he and Yuri talking was still something just between them. He loved his friends, but they were nosy, and what was between he and Yuri—he wasn’t ready to share that with anyone else yet. 

“Maybe I could come and visit you all afterwards?” He asked. “I’d say before, but Yakov would probably kill me.”

Theia squealed. “Would you? That’d be great if you could! And not that I’m saying you should stay for like, a week, but StS2 is the next Friday.”

“Well, I can’t be missing that, now can I?” Victor asked. “Problem is, I don’t know where I’d stay.”

With Yuri was the preferable answer, although he still didn’t have any expectations for the two of them. Yuri still needed time to get over Patrick, and they both needed to keep working on communicating over long distance, but just...living in the same space as his soulmate as he had this summer, if only for a week, left Victor feeling dizzy with happiness. 

“You could stay with me!” Theia said. “Or, well, at the house, I guess, since I’m living with a bunch of the other GSA seniors this year. We have an extra bedroom in the basement, but if someone’s using it, there’s a couch in the upstairs hall that you could sleep on, although Friday night that might get wonky since we always have the after party at Over the Rainbow.”

All of the houses that students rented at Mesquaki, lined up along the lake and wrapping around campus town, were named. Victor had a vague memory of Theia inviting him last year to parties at the house GSA members tended to rent year after year, dubbed Over the Rainbow. He remembered helping her move there earlier this summer, but there was a part of his mind that stubbornly insisted on associating Theia with the little apartment north of campus, by the town park. 

“Maybe I could stay with Yuri then,” he said, hopeful, but trying not to show it.

“Mmmmm,” Theia said. “Phichit’s going to Skate Canada that weekend, so he can probably take you on Friday. Phichit would let you stay in his bed too. I’ll ask him if Friday works for him.”

“Right,” Victor said. He tried not to feel too hurt that he’d just been robbed of the opportunity to stay with Yuri for the whole week through Theia’s oblivion, but even one night was better than none, especially if it would just be the two of them. Maybe they could go stargazing again. 

“Gah, I’m so excited,” Theia said. “I know we talked at the end of the summer about you coming to visit, but I never thought, like, that it would actually  _ happen _ , you know?”

“Yeah,” Victor chuckled. 

There was a chill to the air, more apparent now as he walked head-on into the wind, but it was a bright, sunny day all the same, and it was good to be back in his city, back among familiar buildings, looking back across the river. In spite of himself Victor had come to love Detroit a little bit last year. It reminded him, at times, of Petersburg. It was a city, but not one that tried to swallow you in buildings that scraped the sky every ten feet, rather, a city that clung to its beauty even as time tried to tear it apart. Detroit had been a little more worse for wear than Petersburg; Petersburg, with all its history and palaces, had managed to hold onto some majesty over all the years, but still. 

“Well,” Theia said finally, “anything else? Settling back in okay?”

“Mmmm,” Victor hummed, “just fine. I forgot what a good coach Yakov is, even in just a year. I’m looking forward to this season. It feels strange to live in an apartment that’s...not in a quieter neighborhood, though.”

“Again,” Theia said, “not sure I’ll ever be inclined to describe Campus Town as ‘quiet,’ but I get what you mean. Anywho. I have a playing test next week that I kind of really need to practice for, so I’m gonna let you go. Talk soon, alright?”

“Right,” Victor said with a smile.

“Good,” Theia replied. “See you soon.”

And then the line went dead. He paused as he reached the park at the end of the island, marked by the two red pillars standing like a giant gateway at either side. He had always taken this route because it was longer, which allowed him a little more exercise in the morning, and because the walk home along the river was unrivaled in beauty. Even though he knew it would just take him that much longer, he turned and walked the long way along the split, keeping along the river instead of the street.

The first time he had ever come here had been with his father, when he had been seven. They had taken the lower path. In the middle, there was a little section that ran right along the water with no railing, or ledge even, diving the path from the river.. He had been terrified of falling in, but his father had clung tightly to his hand, and knelt on the cobblestones with him and shown him all the sights they could see from this vantage point. he paused there now, let the wind sweep through his hair, brush it back from his forehead, as the memory filled him up. 

It was a strange memory, strange if only because Victor had gone for so long without his father that it was hard to imagine the man in any other capacity than that which Victor knew him in now: overworked, more concerned with a new business deal than a pretty view across the river.  _ Maman’s _ death had changed his father. Victor had always known this, but it was strange to realize it in a tactile way rather than the general sense. They had been a happy family once.  _ Maman _ and  _ Otets _ and little Victor. His father had always been a stubborn man, but he had softened for  _ Maman _ . They had been soulmates, compliments to each other.  _ Maman _ had shown  _ Otets _ all the softness and beauty of the world, and he had learned to appreciate it for her sake, if not his own, at the very least. 

To be honest, Victor wasn’t sure what his father had brought to the table in that relationship, what it was specifically that had made his mother love his father so much. Clearly, there had to have been something, because even as Victor had grown, even when there had been days when  _ Maman _ had pressed her lips together in quiet disapproval at her husband’s nature,  _ Maman _ had stayed, and she had remained good and gentle and kind. 

He turned away from the view at that though, struggling to determine what he gave to Yuri that Yuri couldn’t find anywhere else, what about him might inspire Yuri to love him more than anyone else. He had thought, sometimes, that he helped Yuri to be a dreamer, but he had seen for himself how beautiful and creative Yuri’s mind was all on it’s own the night they had gone stargazing. Maybe he had nothing to offer but his heart. 

And yet, Victor felt that that just wouldn’t be enough. 

OOO

Yuri and Patrick had been practicing their pair routine every day after classes in the little room in the Rec Center that the GSA continuously had rented out for its members leading up to StS2. It had been strange, being this close to Patrick, to be practicing something that was just...practice. Not leading up to anything fun between the two of them, trying to keep it mechanical and distanced when Yuri knew it probably needed more feeling. He was still trying to puzzle out how he could bridge that gap without blurring the lines of their “truce” as they left that night. 

A wave of cold night air coming off the lake hit him as soon as they walked outside, and Yuri shuddered. He could wait for the bus that came by here that had a stop close to home, but that would mean more waiting in the cold, and walking would only help minimally. He resented, suddenly, that things had to be so complicated between he and Patrick that he hesitated before asking for a ride. Patrick was supposed to be his best friend, but everything they had once been made that relationship difficult now. Difficult in ways that Yuri could barely begin to explain even to himself, not even considering how he felt instinctively. He glanced over at Patrick, trying to work up the nerve, and then paused at the look on Patrick’s face. 

His friend had one earbud in, checking messages and snapchats he had gotten while they’d been practicing, and he was frowning in a way that Yuri had never really seen him frown before, like if he had just heard  or seen something that he didn’t understand, but was distressing all the same. 

“Patrick?” Yuri asked carefully. 

Patrick glanced over at him, startled, and then blinked a few times before glancing back down at his phone. 

“Sorry,” Patrick said. “My mom called me.”

Yuri’s heart dropped out at those words. 

It didn’t matter that they weren’t dating anymore, Yuri immediately stepped closer to Patrick in some gesture of comfort at the words. Patrick and his mother, as a general rule, did not talk to each other. In fact, Patrick’s mother didn’t seem to like him at all. As Patrick had always told it, she had a tendency to write off his depression as a dramatic attempt to catch people’s attention, and on the whole, belittled and demeaned him down to nothing. She hadn’t objected when Seamus, being the ever-caring grandfather that he was, had decided to take Patrick in after everything that happened Patrick’s freshman year of high school. She had never shown any interest in Patrick’s life once he had moved out at all, actually. 

“Why?” Yuri asked. 

Patrick opened and closed his mouth a few times, as if his mind was struggling to figure out how to word what he needed to say, and then he looked over at Yuri in pure bewilderment. 

“My dad’s coming to Chicago,” he said at last. 

“What?” Yuri asked immediately. 

This was another thing that Yuri knew about Patrick: Patrick hadn’t seen his father since he was six. The man had gotten into a fight with Patrick’s mother one night, Patrick had bolted in the middle of it, and when he had come home, his dad was gone. Back home, back to Kenya, his mother had always said. She didn’t want to bothered about Patrick’s father, so eventually, Patrick had just stopped asking. And his dad had never come home or tried to get in contact, so eventually, Patrick had just assumed he never would. 

“My dad’s coming back to Chicago. My mom left a message—that’s what I was just listening to—and she wants me to come down because he wants to see me.”

“Why?” Yuri asked. 

Patrick laughed, and it was tinged with nerves. 

“Hell if I know,” he said. 

“Are you going to go?” Yurie asked. 

Patrick paused. 

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “On one hand, I’d have to see my mom, but...Yurs, I haven’t seen my dad in...God, almost sixteen years.” 

“When did she say he was coming?” Yuri asked. 

“Endish of October. The weekend before StS2.”

“Oh,” Yuri said. 

“Yeah,” Patrick said, finally pulling the earbud out of his ear. He started walking and Yuri trailed behind him. “It’s...really short notice,” he said. “That’s like...barely two weeks away. I feel ambushed.”

“Well, if you don’t want to go, that’s your excuse,” Yuri said. 

“I kinda want to go though,” Patrick said, “just to see him. I don’t even know why he left in the first place.”

“Yeah,” Yuri said. 

“At the same time though,” Patrick said thoughtfully, “I barely remember him. What if he’s not a great person? I mean, Yuri, he  _ left.  _ Just packed up and left one night and never bothered to try and contact me again. What if I want him to be this great person and he’s just not.”

“That’s fair,” Yuri said. 

“But at the same time, it could just be that Mom didn’t  _ want  _ me to talk to him again. For all I know, he did try to reach out and she just intercepted it.”

Yuri hummed something that resembled agreement. It wasn’t his place to make this decision for Patrick, maybe it would have been, once. Maybe he would have weighed in with his thoughts before, but Patrick wasn’t his boyfriend anymore, and this was something Patrick needed to think through on his own. 

Patrick sighed and glanced back over at Yuri. 

“I don’t know,” Patrick said. “I just don’t know. I need to think about it. It’s all so twisted.”

“If it helps,” Yuri said before he could stop himself, “I’ll be in Chicago for Skate America that weekend. So, if you needed a friend…”

He stuttered off at the end. Victor was going to be at Skate America. Yuri had been looking forward to just spending some time alone with his soulmate trying to figure out...whatever it was that was between them, if there was anything at all, which there might not be, since they’d spent so long apart. Adding Patrick to the mix would just complicate things, especially since Yuri had been avoiding telling Victor about talking to Patrick again until he had sorted out whatever it was that he and Patrick were to each other now. 

But he hadn’t been able to help himself. Despite everything, Patrick was still his friend, and Yuri hated to see him struggle with something like this. 

Patrick flashed a smile in his direction. 

“I’ll think about it,” Patrick said again, “but thank you for the support.”

They were silent for a few paces more until they reached the parking lot and Patrick made a beeline for his truck. He glanced back over at Yuri when he was halfway there, not with his usual dopey smile, but with concern still pressing lines into his forehead. 

“You want a ride?” Patrick asked. “I get it if you don’t, but it’s fucking cold and I know...well I know you have a very low cold tolerance.”

Yuri laughed. Maybe...maybe they could be like this. Maybe they could figure out what it meant to just be best friends again. Maybe it was okay to ask for rides on cold nights, and offer opinions when Patrick was going through a rough patch in his life. Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

“Yes, please,” Yuri said, hurrying to catch up with his friend. 

And now Patrick laughed, and smiled his dopey smile, and something in Yuri’s chest that had been feeling awkward and unbalanced drifted away to nothing at how easy this could be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Victor knows about Yuri and Patrick! Patrick's evil mom wants him to come home! The tension grows! 
> 
> But, on a happy note, Victor's coming to StS2, so yay!!!
> 
> Also, I'm going out of town this week, so next week's update will come on Saturday evening instead. Love you all!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blockquotes = text messages

Skate America thundered up on Victor before he knew it. Days and weeks of practicing and training for this season’s debut all came to a head at last. But that was secondary to the person he knew was waiting for him in Chicago, the person he’d been dying to see for over a month. 

Yuri. 

Yuri was here. It was almost too good to be true, but it was. Yuri. Here. In Chicago, at Skate America, with him. Sure, they both had their responsibilities and they were here to skate, not socialize, but still. His soulmate (soulmate!) was here (here!) and it would be the first time they’d seen each other since Victor had left for Russia. More than that, they were alone, and while Victor still had absolutely zero expectations about what that would mean, it still sent a little thrill through him. Even if it just meant curling up and watching a movie, Victor would take it, just so long as if meant being close to Yuri again. 

Victor only paused to dump his suitcase on his bed before he pulled out his phone and texted Yuri. 

> Are you here yet?

He turned on the ringer so that he would hear notifications as they came in and set his phone off to the side as he started unpacking. Yuri was here. He was going to get to see Yuri. He was practically shaking in excitement. Victor had just finished dumping his toiletries in the bathroom when his phone binged. He practically pounced on the mattress when he grabbed it. 

> Yeah

Victor was just starting to type out a question when the next text came in. 

>   1. Just finished unpacking. About to leave for dinner if you want to come. 
> 


Oh. Oh yes. Victor most definitely wanted to get dinner with Yuri. Somewhere nice would be preferable, but if Yuri just wanted a sandwich or something like that, that would be fine too. Forget unpacking; he could do that later. He wanted to see Yuri  _ now.  _

Victor only bothered to snag his wallet and room key, along with his cell phone, which he kept clutched in his hand, as he slipped out the door. His heart was pounding. They were on the same floor. He and Yuri were on the same floor. He counted down the numbers on of the rooms as he sped by them down the hall. 

In less than a minute, he would see Yuri. In less than a minute—

He reached 337 and knocked hesitantly. For a few seconds, he stood fidgeting in the hall, and then the door opened, and… Victor had to restrain his jaw from dropping. 

“Hey Victor,” Patrick said, leaning casually in the door frame. “Yuri,” Patrick called, looking back over his shoulder, “Victor’s here!”

Over Patrick’s shoulder, Victor saw Yuri peek his head out of the bathroom and wave. 

“Hello,” Yuri said.

Victor tried to convey exactly how unexpected he found Patrick’s presence here in the look he gave Yuri then. He wasn’t sure he succeeded. 

It was one thing for Yuri to be...talking to Patrick. Maybe,  _ maybe _ start working through their issues on a casual basis. It was an entirely different thing for Patrick to be here, in Yuri’s room, at an official skating event where Victor had been planning on spending some quality one-on-one time alone with Yuri. 

“So how have you been, Victor?” Patrick asked. 

Victor tried not to let his dismay seep into the glance he gave Patrick. He had to admit, the other man was looking like less of the mess that he’d been the last time Victor had seen him. Still a little ragged, perhaps, but not looking like he’d been completely decimated by the world. 

“Fine,” Victor said tightly. 

Patrick tilted his head, and studied Victor carefully. Victor tried not to twitch under Patrick’s scrutiny. He crossed his arms and glanced away, then realized how foolish and petty he must have looked and uncrossed them. 

Where was Yuri. 

Why hadn’t Yuri told him that Patrick was going to be here. 

Of all the times that Victor had felt personally attacked by the universe, including learning that Yuri was his soulmate last spring, and learning that Yuri wanted him to stay on his last night in Pontiac this summer, Victor was certain that right now had to rank in his top five biggest moments of betrayal. 

“Yuri, are you coming?” Patrick asked. 

“Calm down,” Yuri snipped, appearing at Patrick shoulder. “I needed to grab my wallet.”

They gave each other A Look then that Victor knew meant something, but couldn’t translate for himself, and then Patrick untethered himself from the door frame and stepped into the hall, Yuri closing the door neatly behind him. And then they all just stood there, Patrick with his hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders scrunched up around his neck, looking extremely uncomfortable, and Yuri shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet, like if he wanted to move but wasn’t quite sure  _ how _ he wanted to move.  Finally, he looked up at Victor. 

“It’s good to—” Yuri started. 

Victor pulled him into a tight hug before his soulmate could finish the sentiment. He had so many questions, why Patrick was here chief among them, but for now, well...it had been over a month since he had seen his soulmate in person. It felt like a lifetime. Yuri’s glasses were different now. No longer the familiar blue half-frames but a more sleek, chicer pair. Had Yuri’s hair always been that long? Was that a new shirt? 

Everything else was secondary. Yuri was here before him now, and the unsettled fluttering that Victor hadn’t realized had been pricking in his chest settled. He could feel tears starting to rim his eyes. Yuri. Here. In his arms. It was better than he remembered. 

After a moment, Yuri relaxed, and then brought his arms up to hug Victor back. His hands rested on Victor’s shoulder blades, one ghosting over where the tattoo was. 

“I missed you,” Victor croaked in Yuri’s ear. 

“I missed you too,” Yuri said softly. 

They clung to each other a minute or so longer, and then Victor remembered that they weren't exactly alone and stepped away. Patrick shifted, glanced up at them with a guarded look in his eyes. The look he gave Yuri was unreadable, but Yuri didn’t catch it anyways. Yuri shoved his hands in his pockets and ducked his head, but Victor could see the shadow of a shy little smile forming on his mouth. 

“So where do we want to get food?” Yuri asked. 

Patrick scoffed. “There’s not a lot around here. Still can’t believe it. They say it’s in Chicago, and then it’s in Hoffman Estates. Hoffman Estates! I’m scandalized.”

Victor chuckled. “Why’s that?”

“Victor,” Patrick said despairingly, “there’s nothing  _ in _ Hoffman Estates. I checked. They don’t even have a downtown as far as I can tell. It’s like...the worst suburb. I’m not even sure it should count as a suburb. It’s just….a place where people happen to live. It’s like Iowa, if Iowa was somehow transplanted to the Chicago suburbs. Hoffman Estates is a disappointment to everybody, including itself.”

“Wow,” Victor said. 

Patrick rolled his eyes and started stalking down the hall. Yuri followed, and then Victor, wishing he could reach out and take his soulmate’s hand but prevented by his keen awareness of Patrick’s presence. 

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said, “Just...as a Chicago native, like, when people say they’re from Chicago, or going to Chicago, and aren’t  _ actually _ going to The City proper, it’s very upsetting.”

“So why don’t we just go to the city?” Victor asked. 

“Can’t,” Patrick scoffed. “It’s like...an hour away. That’s how far into the ‘burbs we are. It’s just not worth it, which sucks, because I still kinda know all the great places in The City. It’s been a few years, but I still know my home.”

It was strange, the way Patrick talked about his home. Different than how Victor had ever caught himself talking about Petersburg. There was a pride there, defensive, but certain. The City. When Patrick said that, there was only one place he could be referring to, and not just because they were currently in a hotel in the surrounding suburbs.  All the same though...

“What do you mean, ‘a few years?’’ Victor asked. “Don’t you still live here? I mean, I know you visit your grandpa a lot, but…”

He trailed off when he saw the expressions on Patrick and Yuri’s faces. There was an awkward pause as he glanced between them, waiting for someone to fill him in on what they obviously both knew. 

“I’ve lived with my Grandpa since I was 15,” Patrick said. “I’m back this weekend to see my mom, because she asked me to come back down because my dad’s in The City this week, and I haven’t seen him since I was six.”

Yuri frowned, it was little, but it was there. Clearly, something about why Patrick was here was something Yuri strongly disapproved of, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it. 

“Did you check to see if there was anything around here at all while I was unpacking, P?” Yuri asked. 

Patrick stared at Victor for a beat longer, waiting for Victor to question what he had just said, Victor supposed, but then he looked back at Yuri. 

“Yeah,” Patrick said. “There’s a Noodles & Company a few minutes away if that’s good with you.”

Yuri shrugged. “Sounds fine,” he said. 

“Good for me,” Victor intoned quietly. 

Patrick nodded. He still had a defensive tilt to his shoulders. They had paused to have this discussion in the middle of the hallway, and Victor was the first to take a step forward, pushing past Patrick towards the elevator. He was pretty certain that Yuri and Patrick followed. He didn’t really bother to look back. His heart had started sinking in his chest. This wasn’t supposed to be how this weekend was supposed to go. He couldn’t get over that thought. It just...wasn’t how he had pictured it at all. Curling up with Yuri, watching a movie, going on a walk and trying to pick out stars in the October sky, that’s what this weekend had been meant to be. A gold medal for him, a medal (preferably silver) for Yuri. The two of the sharing the podium together. 

Not this. Never this at all. 

OOO

They piled into Patrick’s car for the ride to the restaurant. Yuri drove, Victor squeezed into the middle next to him, and Patrick on his other side, looking at his open palms on his lap. Yuri dropped them off while he went to park and Victor and Patrick stood awkwardly in line together while they waited for Yuri to come back. 

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said at last, quietly. 

Victor glanced over at him in surprise. He’d been trying to ignore Patrick’s existence by thoroughly reading through the menu and had imagined that Patrick had been doing the same. 

“What?” Victor asked. 

“I’m sorry that I’m here,” Patrick said. “I know...I know you’re still probably pissed at me for breaking his heart. Theia is. And...yeah. You have every right to be pissed at me.”

Victor studied him for a moment, saying nothing. Patrick wasn’t even looking at him, just leaning against the wall, staring holes in his shoes. 

“If you’re here to see your mom then why are you bothering Yuri?” Victor asked. 

Patrick didn’t look up, but there was a moment when his shoulders rose that Victor thought he was going to speak. But Patrick didn’t. He paused, and chewed on his lip for a second longer. 

“I haven’t seen my mom since I was...fifteen? I think?” Patrick said. “I don’t know. And my dad left when I was six. Just up and left one night. No idea where he went or what happened to him, really. Mom never really talked about it. And I feel like I’ve seen him more recently than that, because I can still remember the shape of his nose, and how I used to look in the mirror and think about how much I wanted to look like him when I grew up, but that has to be it, because he never came back.”

“Wow,” Victor breathed. “Why so long?”

Patrick shrugged, and now he shifted and looked up at Victor. 

“I don’t know,” he said, “my mother...she’s a difficult woman, and she’s had a difficult life. She’s hard inside. And that hardness has a tendency to crush everybody underfoot. Even the people she likes, she kinda hates, you know? Grinds them up even if she doesn’t really mean to.”

“So that’s why you live with your grandpa?” Victor asked. 

“Yeah,” Patrick said. “Yeah that’s part of it. I don’t know if that’s why my dad left though. I just remember them screaming at each other and getting up and sneaking down the back stairs and bolting. I was so tired of it. I was so tired of listening to them fight all the time and I couldn’t stand it. A policeman picked me up a while later, on the North Side. When my mom came to get me from the station, my dad was gone. And that was it. Poof. No more dad. And then when I was fifteen, after...well, I had a really bad year, and my grandpa decided to take me in, and after that I just... never saw mom again. It was better, for me, not to, and she never tried to dispute that.”

“I think it’s been about that long since I last saw my dad too,” Victor said. “I mean, we call each other, but…”

“Yeah, my mom doesn't even call,” Patrick said, cutting him off a little. “But you asked why I was bothering Yuri, and it’s because Yuri offered. He knew that this was going to be a shitshow for me, so he offered to, I don’t know, hide me if I needed him to until I had to actually see both of them, and afterwards too, I guess.”

“Oh,” Victor said.

“Yuri’s a drop-everything kind of person,” Patrick admitted. “What I mean is, if you have a problem, Yuri drops everything, regardless of what’s going on in his life, to help you. He’s incredibly selfless, and believe me, I know it’s more than I deserve. I’m careless. My life is messy. I do dumb things. But he’s always there for me. Always.”

Victor just nodded numbly.

“Promise me that you’ll take care of him,” Patrick said suddenly.

Victor looked at the other man in shock. Patrick,  _ Patrick,  _ of all people had the gall to demand something like that of Victor. Patrick had been the one to break Yuri’s heart. Victor had been the one to stand by Yuri and do his best to mend it, on more than one occasion, even. Not just this summer, but last spring, too, when careless words that Victor hadn’t even known Patrick had spoken had left Yuri in crisis. If anything, it should be Victor demanding right now that Patrick—

“I know you love him,” Patrick said, cutting off Victor’s train of thought. “And not just as a friend. You  _ love him _ , love him. Which is why I’m asking you to take care of him. I can’t anymore. I don’t know if he’d let me, let alone want me to, considering how I hurt him. But you love him, and I think he’s kinda in love with you too, Victor, more than either of you realize. I think…I think he’s been falling for you for a while, even if he hasn’t seen it, since last spring, at least, the more that I think about it.”

It seemed to break something in Patrick to say those words, to admit that. Victor was mostly just shocked that Patrick had noticed anything about them at all.

“How—?” He choked out.

“I’m dumb, but I’m not blind,” Patrick grumbled. “I know what it looks like when Yuri falls in love with somebody, considering, you know, that he fell in love with me once upon a time, and…well. The way you snapped at me after we broke up. Theia was hurt on a mom sort of level. You looked like it was  _ your  _ heart I had just shattered.”

“Oh,” Victor whispered, and not so much whispered as formed the shape of the sound with his mouth.

“I was careless,” Patrick said. “I  _ am  _ careless, though I’m trying to change, and that’s what broke Yuri’s heart. So please, Victor, promise me that you’ll be careful with him, and you’ll take care of him, because careless people can only break selfless people’s hearts.”

Victor nodded numbly.

“I promise,” he murmured.

Behind him, the door swung open. Patrick pulled himself up. Victor glanced over his shoulder so see Yuri standing behind him. Something on his face must have given him away, because Yuri glanced quickly between he and Patrick.

“All good?” Yuri asked, nerves tingeing his voice.

“Yep,” Patrick supplied before Victor could say anything. “Just fine. Just waiting for you.”

Yuri smiled, relieved. “I’m sorry; it took me a while to find a spot.”

“It’s fine,” Patrick said again, waving away Yuri’s concern. “I was just filling Victor in about my mom.”

“Oh,” Yuri said. “Oh, well, uh, maybe we should order.”

“Good plan,” Patrick said, unpeeling himself from the wall. Together, they stepped into line. Victor stammered out his order when the cashier looked at him. He couldn’t get Patrick’s speech to stop replaying itself through his mind. Patrick knew he was in love with Yuri. Patrick’s demand that he take care of Yuri, that he be careful of Yuri’s heart.

And something that had just been glancing, in the scheme of things, but had landed the deepest blow of all.

Patrick thought that Yuri had started falling in love with Victor long before he and Patrick had broken up.

OOO

Dinner was quiet. Upbeat music played quietly in the background while Victor tried to pretend his conversation with Patrick  _ hadn’t  _ just happened. Yuri and Patrick caught him up on everything that he had missed in Pontiac while he’d been gone. There had been a fire at his favorite stationary shop and it was currently closed for the foreseeable future. Graeme’s was trying to get an expansion, but was currently failing. News about this. News about that. Pontiac, it seemed, had also changed in the short time he’d been gone. Knowledge of this left Victor feeling strangely unmoored. He didn’t quite belong in St. Petersburg, but he wasn’t sure he belonged in the college town he’d come to love. He’d thought he’d belong with Yuri, but as he studied his soulmate across the table, he wasn’t certain about that either. 

Yuri and Patrick seemed...fine. Not as touchy-feely as they once had been, but otherwise, just fine. In fact, as the evening wore on, conversation seemed to be more between Yuri and his ex boyfriend than inclusive of Victor as well. Maybe Victor should be as concerned as Theia was about the two of them making nice. Maybe they would move past what Patrick had done this summer and make up, leaving Victor in the cold again. Maybe. It made his heart ache, and left him with a bitter feeling in his mouth. 

After dinner, Yuri drove them back to the hotel. Patrick hopped out at the roundabout as Yuri got out of the driver’s seat. Victor waited as the two of them paused and said their goodbyes. He felt like a shadow, a secondary character in his own story, an attendant lord, pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas. He leaned against the truck, not watching them and letting them have their moment in peace. 

“Are you going home then?” Yuri asked quietly. 

Patrick scoffed. “It’s not home so much as enemy terrain,” he said. 

Yuri hummed a little in acknowledgement. Victor studied the cigarette butts that had been left in the ashtray above the garbage can outside the doors. He tried to come up with a poem for the sight—some sort of play on the idea of urban flowers. Buds instead of butts.

“Are you going to be alright?” Yuri asked. 

“I don’t know,” Patrick whispered.

A pause, then: 

“Yuri, I’m scared.”

“I know,” Yuri replied. 

“What if—” Patrick started. 

In the reflection of the sliding glass doors, Victor watched Yuri step forward and wrap Patrick in his arms. 

“How many times have you told me not to go down that path with my own anxieties, P?” Yuri asked. 

Patrick laughed, but it was humorless. Their door-reflection was imperfect, and tinged a sickly orange-gold. Victor was one smudge. Yuri and Patrick were another. 

“You know how bad I am at listening to my own advice, Yurs,” Patrick said. 

Yurs. That was new. Victor had never heard that nickname before. More than ever, he felt like an intrusion on a scene he had not been meant to witness. Yuri laughed now, and stepped away, but still held onto Patrick’s arms. The smudge that he and Patrick represented in the reflection grew a little bigger. 

“Call me if you need anything,” Yuri said. 

“I don’t want to bother you,” Patrick muttered. 

“Call me,” Yuri said firmly. “You’re my best friend, P. If you need help, I’m here for you, okay?”

Another pause, then Patrick’s part of the smudge moved in something that could resemble a nod. 

“Okay,” Patrick said. 

They hugged again, and then separated, more solidly this time, so that there were three smudges in the door-reflection.

“Good luck, Victor,” Patrick said. 

Victor glanced up, surprised that Patrick had remembered that he was there, and then nodded. 

“Thanks,” he said. 

Patrick studied him again for a long moment, and then nodded to himself. He climbed into the truck through the side door. 

“See you both later,” he said as he slammed the door shut. 

Yuri leaned in the open window as Patrick started the truck up again. Victor stepped away from the side and hovered three feet behind Yuri. Waiting, although he wasn’t sure for what anymore. A minute alone with Yuri? He didn’t know what he would say once he got it. 

“Drive safe,” Yuri said. 

Patrick nodded. 

“I mean it,” Yuri said. “Watch your speed. And start stopping sooner than you usually do. Pay attention to the road.”

“You gonna nag me all night?” Patrick asked with a smile. 

His hands rested on the wheel, ready to go. Yuri stepped back.

“Call me when you get there,” Yuri said. 

“I’m driving into the city,” Patrick said, “not flying halfway across the world. 

“I know,” Yuri said, “but still.”

There was a moment of silence, during which Victor could only imagine what conversation they were having with just their eyes, and then Patrick nodded. 

“You’re going to crush this,” Patrick said. 

Yuri laughed. “Call me if you need anything,” he said. 

“I will,” Patrick promised.

Yuri stepped back until he was standing next to Victor and raised his hand to wave goodbye. 

“See you Sunday,” he said. 

Patrick raised one hand off the steering wheel in a little wave of his own and echoed the sentiment, and then he put the truck into drive and was gone. Victor and Yuri stood under the awning and watched until Patrick’s tail lights disappeared. Or rather, Yuri watched. Victor watched Yuri watch Patrick drive away and wondered what he was doing with his life. When Patrick was out of sight, Yuri turned back to the hotel and Victor followed. 

They were silent as they walked through the lobby and waited for the elevator. 

“Floor?” Yuri asked once they had stepped inside. 

It was the first time he and Yuri had been alone together, and the first thing his soulmate said to him or asked him was what floor he was going to. Honestly, it cracked Victor’s heart a little. 

“Same as you,” he said. 

He sounded exhausted, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He felt tired down to his bones, tired in the way he had been after he had moved back into his apartment this fall. Yuri punched the button for the third floor and it lit up gold. Victor leaned into one corner, crossed his arms across his chest, and continued contemplating the state of his life. Yuri just stood in front of him, not saying anything.

“Are you alright?” Yuri asked at last as the elevator doors binged open on the second floor. A family piled in, eyeing them warily. 

Victor’s head jerked up. 

“What?” He asked. 

“You just seem quiet,” Yuri said. “Quieter than usual, that is.”

“Oh,” Victor said. “I—I’m fine.”

Yuri studied him for a moment. The elevator reached the third floor and stopped. The doors opened with a soft bing. Mechanically, Victor unmoored himself from the corner and stepped out. Yuri followed suit. 

“Are you upset about Patrick?” Yuri asked as he trailed after Victor down the hall. 

“No,” Victor said. 

“Yes you are,” Yuri said. “Everybody is.”

“Yuri, who you hang out with in your time is up to you,” Victor said. 

“Please don’t lie to me,” Yuri said. 

Victor paused, Look back over his shoulder. Yuri had stopped in the middle of the hall. He looked completely helpless, and Victor’s heart ached enough at the sight that, despite the emotion swirling around his chest, he turned and walked back towards Yuri. 

“I wasn’t—” he started, and then stopped himself. Took a deep breath. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked instead. 

Yuri looked down at his feet and shrugged. 

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I guess I just wanted to figure things out with him first and then—I don’t know. I should’ve. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

Victor nodded. “It just—when your door opened it was a bit of a shock, you know? I mean, I knew you had mentioned that he had talked to you, but I didn’t think he’d be...here.”

Yuri nodded. “I know. And that’s more of a random thing than anything else. We drove down this morning, and then he didn’t want to just drop me off, so he stuck around for a while while I unpacked. Honestly, I think he was just avoiding going home.”

“I get that,” Victor said, “but I wish you would have told me he was coming along and why.”

Yuri scuffed his toe on the carpet. 

“Sorry,” he said again.

Victor sighed. Two steps forward, one step back. That was how it always was between them. And frankly, it was starting to get on his nerves. 

“Come on,” he said. 

Yuri looked up, question in his eyes. 

“I still need to unpack,” Victor clarified, “and I miss just getting to spend time with you. I mean, if you just want to go to bed, that’s fine, but…”

He trailed off, letting the offer hang, but then Yuri smiled, and nodded. 

“Okay,” he whispered around a small, wonderous smile. 

This time, when Victor turned to head back down the hall, he held out his hand. 

His heart fluttered when Yuri took it. But Victor just smiled, and squeezed it tight. Yuri was here. Patrick aside, that was what mattered. Yuri was here, and that alone made everything else okay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I got home yesterday from a week long home-repair mission trip. 
> 
> On Monday I almost died when my spotter stepped away and my ladder started falling.  
> On Tuesday, I got sick.  
> On Wednesday, I got heat exhaustion.  
> On Thursday, I learned that there's more than one way to be "useful."  
> And on Friday, my crew was at the work site until 9 pm finishing up because we're the last work week of the summer. 
> 
> It's been a week fam. Sorry the chapter's later, but it's here now and that's what matters. Especially with the drama cranking up a notch. ;)


	7. Chapter 7

Yuri stayed up with Victor so late the first night, just talking while Victor unpacked, that he almost fell asleep there, but around three he gathered what strength he had left and he slumped back to his room to pass out before the competition. He told Victor...a lot, that night. About Patrick. He had asked, and Patrick had given Yuri the go ahead to share his story with Victor. It had been hard to listen to. Hard, if only because Victor had thought at first that he understood Patrick’s pain and hesitation about not seeing his parents after so long, but then Victor had understood the truth. 

He had been blessed, for however long, to have a mother that loved him, and a father too. And after her death, even though he and  _ Otets  _ had fallen apart, he had never felt truly as unwanted as Patrick did. He understood Yuri’s worry then for Patrick, even if a part of him still resented the fact that Yuri still cared enough about Patrick to worry at all. 

He didn’t see Yuri at all the next day, and when he texted, Yuri just replied that, since he’d had practice in the morning, Patrick had swung by and was showing him around the city. Victor couldn’t bring himself to ask why he hadn’t been invited to come along. He had a few guesses, and he wasn’t particularly interested in having any of them confirmed. He ordered room service that night and ate dinner alone, still trying to fiddle out some poem about the other night. The cigarettes were still bothering him. And their smudged reflections in the doors. 

He saw Yuri the next day, at practice, just briefly. He and Yakov and Yuri and Ciao Ciao went out to dinner that night. Yakov and Ciao Ciao chatted loudly about this season, and what it had been like when they’d both been skating. Victor resisted the urge to play footsie with Yuri while his soulmate scrolled through his phone, waiting for messages from Patrick no doubt. In the evening, he went to watch the women skate, and the pairs, sans Yuri, who, after dinner, had just said that he was tired and heading back to the hotel. 

Victor tried not to think too much of it. He tried to come up with poems instead. 

But writing hadn’t been going so well since he had left Pontiac. He was certain that Yuri would have said that the “mopey foreign poet aesthetic” was as strong as ever (if not stronger, given how often lately he had been prone to fits of nostalgia and reminiscence) but that was the truth. He hadn’t been able to write a single new line of poetry since he’d left Yuri and Pontiac behind, and although he’d been thinking plenty of old poems, it just...didn’t quite count as the same. 

He lay awake all night thinking about it: empty poetry and missing Yuri. 

He didn’t feel at all ready when the short program rolled around the next day. In fact, Victor was feeling more like crawling back into a warm bed in a dark hotel room and pretending that he was with his dear Makka in a place where the world did not demand that he be a functioning human. Yuri wasn’t warming up with the rest of the competitors when Victor arrived at the arena with Yakov--more likely than not, Ciao Ciao had pulled Yuri off into a quieter corner, where he wouldn’t be bothered by scrutiny from the media, or other competitors. He wished that he could find Yuri, though, if only for the minute’s assurance of being physically near his soulmate. 

As time rolled around for him to get onto the ice, that restless thing that had been growing in Victor’s chest over the last few days grew tighter and tighter. He had hoped to see Yuri before he took off. He had hoped to get a passing word of good luck, at least. Yakov practically had to shove him away from the boards when it came time to go. Victor just did his best not to let the disappointment leave his mouth tasting too bitter. 

He saw Yuri in the brief second between when he turned around to get into his starting position and when the music started. Yuri was far off, but still there, leaning against the boards, and he was smiling. He flashed Victor a small thumbs up when they locked eyes across the ice. And then Victor smiled too. 

It would have been easy to say that that brief acknowledgement and little bit of encouragement made everything in Victor feel suddenly better. It didn’t, though. But it was like it had been on the night so many weeks ago when he had woken up, certain that there was an intruder in the dark. It was like if he had been stumbling around, blind, trying to figure out what was wrong and Yuri had just turned on the light. His fear wasn’t gone, but his confidence that everything would turn out alright was stronger. And right now, as the music started and his program took off, that was all he needed. 

OOO

The two of them spent more time together over the next few days. Victor won his gold. Yuri scraped out a bronze. Yakov had helped Victor rework his programs significantly since Victor’s return to Petersburg, to the point that his final score had been untouchable by even the most generous standards. Yuri’s programs were mostly the same, though, all things considered, and Victor had plenty of thoughts on how they might be improved. 

Which he was sharing now, as they wandered through the nearby Target, which they were visiting under the pretense of Yuri looking for some new movies.

The problem with looking for movies in Target, however, was that you have to be in the movie section. Yuri and Victor were very distinctly not in the movie section. They were in the home decor section. Not that Victor minded. Any time spent with Yuri was a good time. 

He was leaning against the shelves, dictating to Yuri why some of the finer points of Yuri’s choreography needed adjusting. Yuri was leaning over, examining an array of plastic succulents as if they might contain the movies he was looking for. 

“Do you understand?” Victor asked. 

“Hmmm?” Yuri asked, glancing up. “Oh, yeah. That makes sense.”

“You haven’t been listening to me, have you?” Victor asked. 

Yuri shrugged. “I am, I’m just…”

“He’s fine,” Victor said gently. 

It stung. It really, really stung to know that Yuri was more concerned with the well-being of his ex-boyfriend than focusing on spending this time with Victor, especially on their last night together, but Victor knew by now that there was nothing he could do about it. Not when Yuri had legitimate cause to be concerned in the first place. Yuri worried. It was just the kind of person Yuri was. It was part of the reason why Victor was in love with Yuri to begin with. He couldn’t be upset just because he didn’t particularly care for the person Yuri was worried about. 

Yuri frowned, as if he didn’t quite understand what Victor was alluding too, but then his face cleared with understanding. He sighed, his shoulders slumping with defeat. 

“It’s not that,” he said softly. “I mean, it is, but that’s on the back-burner right now. It’s...it’s, you know, and I wish I could stop thinking about it and just...be with you, but I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Victor said, waving his hands. 

There was an awkward beat as Yuri nodded and neither of them said anything. Victor scrambled to find a way to turn the conversation elsewhere before this ended up be a truly pointless trip. 

“Why are we over here, anyways?” Victor asked, looking around. “I’m not certain, but this doesn’t seem like where we need to be.”

“Oh, I already got what I needed,” Yuri said, holding up a set of bluray cases. Two were about space. Astronauts were on the covers. One was an anime of some sort. “I was just wandering around listening to you talk.” 

Victor blinked in surprise. He was fairly certain his mouth was hanging open. Yuri smiled. 

“You didn’t notice?” he asked. 

Numbly, Victor shook his head and Yuri chuckled. 

“You’re almost as blind as Patrick,” Yuri said. 

He started walking down the aisle and Victor trailed behind him. A part of Victor scoffed at being compared to Yuri’s ex, but at the same time, he knew that Yuri hadn’t been intending to draw any positive or negative comparisons between the two of them, that Yuri, with that wonderful scientific brain of his, had just been making an observation, and Victor couldn’t hold that against him. 

“It’s just that I hate that you have to leave again,” Yuri said softly as Victor came up besides him. 

“Well, at least we still have another week,” Victor said helpfully. 

Yuri stopped and looked at him in confusion. 

“Victor, tonight’s the last night. You’re going back to Russia tomorrow and I have to go back to school.”

Victor tilted his head. “Didn’t I tell you?” he wondered aloud. “I could have sworn that I told you.”

“Told me  _ what? _ ” Yuri demanded. 

“I’m staying for the week. Theia invited me. And then Friday night I’m actually supposed to stay with you because Maria will be back and I wanted to give them space.”

Yuri’s jaw dropped. 

“You’re...you’re staying?” He croaked.

“Just for a little while longer, yeah,” Victor said with a smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t mention it to you. I must have just assumed Theia would and forgot about it.”

For a moment, Yuri didn’t say anything, he just stared at Victor, jaw still slack. Victor gave him a weak smile and waved his hands just a little, as if to say “surprise.” 

“I--” Victor started. 

And then Yuri threw his arms around him, squeezing Victor in a tight hug. Victor abandoned whatever it was he had been about to say and wrapped his arms around Yuri. For his part, Yuri just burrowed his head into Victor’s shoulder. They stood like that for a while together in the middle of the aisle. If suburbanites wandering through the store wondered what they were up to, no one stopped to stare too long, or even ask questions. It was almost as though there was no one else there at all, as if it was just he and Yuri tucked inside this moment. It was the kind of moment that Victor wanted to hold onto forever, not as a poem, but just a moment where he could hit pause on the world, and stay holding onto Yuri, stay with Yuri holding onto him, forever and ever. 

At last, Yuri stepped back. 

“Sorry,” Yuri said, stepping back. He sniffed a little, then huffed out a little laugh. “I just...I just missed you, I guess. 

Victor’s smile grew. 

“I’m missed you too,” he said. 

“I’m glad you get to stay longer,” Yuri replied. He turned, and they started walking down the aisle again. “It’s too soon to say goodbye all over again.”

On a whim, Victor reached out and took Yuri’s hand. Yuri started in surprise, but didn’t let go, and Victor gave his hand a gentle squeeze.  _ I love you,  _ Victor thought of saying then, because he did, more, it seemed like, than he ever had before, but it was too soon. He knew it was too soon. Yuri was still trying to figure out where he stood with Patrick, even if he hadn’t said so openly, and it was best to take these things one step at a time. Yuri cared. Yuri wanted him here, and, thinking back to the night they had gone stargazing, Yuri thought that one day they would be together, that the threads of their lives would meet again. And because of all of that, Victor could be patient. He could hold still and wait for the moment when the stars would align just right. 

They wandered around for a little while longer together, not really doing anything but messing around. Victor made Yuri try on a few hideous articles of clothing, just for the fun of it. Yuri insisted on buying Victor a hat, since, as Yuri observed, Yuri had several and Victor had none. To be honest, Victor would have prefered to just steal one of Yuri’s, but watching Yuri fuss over the selection, try and pick out something that he would suit Victor just right, was heartwarming. Eventually, he settled on a knit, olive green number, brim folded up to provide an extra layer over the ears and lined with fleece on the inside. Victor tugged it on over his head when they finally stepped outside. It was warm, he had to admit, warm enough that it would more than stand up to the frigid winters that were already starting to grace Petersburg’s streets. 

Yuri looked up and sighed. 

“Stars,” he said wistfully, and Victor laughed. 

They had only let go of each others hands when absolutely necessary, and Victor still clung to Yuri’s now, shopping bag full of all the knick-knacks they had brought clutched tightly in his other. 

“When I was younger,” Yuri said, looking over at Victor with a conspiratory smile, “I used to go running at night and when I got far enough away from all the lights, I would just stare up at the sky and spin around and around until they were just streaks in the sky.”

“I only ever saw the stars when we went out into the country,” Victor admitted. “I just had snow. And streetlights, which is almost close enough when you think about it.”

Their feet started moving back in the direction of the hotel, and Victor let them carry him. 

“Have you ever seen a satellite picture of earth at night?” Yuri asked. 

“No,” Victor said. “Why?”

“It kind of looks like stars,” Yuri said. “When I first saw it, it kind of made me sad, because all that light means light pollution, which means you can see fewer stars, but it’s also really pretty. You can see how cities are connected to each other across the continents. Little lines of golden light between them, and then starbursts where the people are.”

“That sounds gorgeous,” Victor breathed. 

“It is,” Yuri assured him. 

They walked back together in silence, Yuri pausing every now and then to tilt his head back and take in the stars, Victor always pausing besides him to do the same. Victor trailed after Yuri back to Yuri’s room when they got back, and they curled up together and turned on one of the movies Yuri had bought. Victor was asleep before the film was over, exhaustion from how late the night had gotten and everything that happened that weekend finally catching up with him, but Yuri didn’t wake him up to make him leave, and in the morning, Victor woke up with Yuri still dreaming besides him, golden morning light washing over them, and for the first time in months, he had an idea for a poem.

OOO

Yuri dragged himself out of sleep slowly, like swimming up from a deep dive before finally breaking the surface. Victor was half sitting on the bed besides him, one leg off the bed, one folder beneath him,  writing. Golden light streamed around Victor, catching on his silver hair and practically making it glow. It was such a bizarre, yet beautiful, site that Yuri struggled to process for a moment that this was real, not another dream. That Victor, his soulmate, was here besides him, like if it was the most casual thing in the world. 

“What are you writing?” Yuri asked, and Victor looked up. 

If they had been dating, if Yuri was more certain of where they stood with each other, if his heart was still not healing from a broken heart, he might have reached out, brushed his fingers against Victor’s arm, tried to see for himself what this poem was about. 

But they weren’t dating, and he wasn’t certain, and his heart was still healing, so he kept his hands to himself. He pushed himself up to sit besides Victor and then rubbed his eyes, if only to do something with the hands that longed more than anything to reach out and pull Victor closer. 

Victor smiled when he saw that Yuri was awake, soft like the morning light. 

“A poem,” he said. 

“What’s it about?” Yuri asked. 

He reached over and snagged his glasses from the table besides the bed and slipped them on. He fidgeted with them a second longer than was probably necessary before looking over at Victor again. 

Victor’s smiled turned coy and knowing. 

“Lots of things,” he said. 

Yuri’s heart thundered. 

“Is it about me?” he asked. 

“Maybe, a little bit, perhaps,” Victor teased. “Would you like it to be about you?” 

Yuri struggled for a moment to remember how to speak. Flirting. Victor was flirting with him, both of them still on the bed. Victor’s hair was still mused with sleep, like if he had woken up, been immediately struck with inspiration, and then turned instantly to writing before taking care of himself. Yuri’s mind turned out all of they paths this moment could lead them down, and panicked at the prospects. 

“No,” Yuri lied. 

Victor started back, just a little.Hurt pinched around his eyes. 

“Oh,” Victor said. He looked down at his notebook, and then started to close it, carefully, as if he were ashamed to be caught writing. 

“It’s fine,” Yuri scrambled to say. “Just…”

Just what? Unexpected? Unwanted? He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. The idea of Victor writing poems about him certainly sent a little thrill through his body, but at the same time, without any real context about what they were to each other, without that solid footing, it was also unsettling, like a declaration of sorts that Yuri wasn’t certain he was ready to hear. 

Victor shrugged. “It’s fine,” he said, “I was nearly done anyways.”

A pregnant pause stretched itself out in the space between them. Yuri fussed with the sheets in front of him. 

“How long have you been up?” he asked finally. 

“Not long,” Victor said, waving a hand and dismissing the uncertainties he must have heard riding on Yuri’s voice in the words. “Do you want to go get breakfast?”

Yuri looked just past him, out the window, towards where the sun broke up over the shopping center just beyond the parking lot, where he and Victor had been wandering about just last night. It had been a good night, and he’d been able to shed all of his uncertainty just wandering around with Victor and listening to his friend talk. Sometimes, he realized, there did not have to be expectations, there did not have to be titles, there did not have to be certainty. The universe, after all, was an uncertain place. His love of physics and the stars was born of that uncertainty, in part. The two of them could do this, they could share the same space and exist in an uncertain plane and it could be okay. It was a new day, with new possibilities, and Victor was going to be with him for another week. Yuri’s heart glowed as brightly as the sun at the thought. 

Victor wasn’t leaving just yet. They still had some time, even if it was fleeting. 

He turned his focus back to Victor. 

“Breakfast is good,” he said. 

Victor smiled, and it shone bright like stars. 

“Good,” he said. “Very good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly don't know if I'm capable of writing something cute without also including something painful ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Maybe I have a problem ~~I probably have a problem~~


	8. Chapter 8

Victor stood idly by as he watched Yuri and Patrick pack up the truck. Yuri, it seemed, had road tripped down here with his ex, and had every intention of road tripping back. Victor was still trying to make sense of their exchange this morning, their gentle flirting that had been shut down so suddenly and unexpectedly.

_Would you like it to be about you?_

_No._

He was trying to decide if Yuri had looked offended, or just surprised, when Victor had teased him like that. He was leaning towards surprised, but that may have been just to save his own feelings. Breakfast at a diner they had found nearby afterwards had been fine. Back to the same comfortable conversation they had shared before, the sense that they could just share a space in silence without demanding anything more than each other’s presence. That had been nice. More than nice, really. Soft and beautiful and sweeter than the syrup Victor had poured on his pancakes.

Now was not a soft and sweet moment. Now was a moment when he felt like a crumpled straw wrapper cast carelessly aside. Yuri moved with ruthless efficiency as he packed everything up. Eager, no doubt, to get on the road towards Pontiac. Home. Patrick helped, albeit quietly, but he seemed hollowed out. A sad shadow of the person he had been on Wednesday. His shoulders curved inwards, he scuffed his toe on the ground whenever he paused, hands shoved deep into his pockets. He didn’t meet Victor’s eye, and he only spoke when Yuri asked him a direct question.

When they were finished, Yuri heaved a satisfied sigh, planted his hands on his hips, and turned to Victor.

“Do you want a ride to the airport?” he asked.

Victor shook his head. “I’m heading out with Yakov.”

“Does he know you’re coming to Pontiac?”

Victor shrugged. “If he doesn’t already, he’s going to find out once I don’t get on the plane with him.”

Yuri smiled, and huffed out a little laugh.

“He’s going to kill you,” he said.

“Oh, probably,” Victor replied, smiling too, “but it’s worth it, if I get to see all of you for a week.”

“Do you want us to pick you up, or is Theia getting you?”

Victor hesitated. He hadn’t really discussed it with Theia--just assumed it would be one of those things that would be taken care of, just like always, but at the same time, any extra time he could spend with Yuri, even if Patrick was along for the ride, it would be worth it.

“Going with you would be nice,” he said at last.

Yuri beamed. “We’ll be there,” he said. “When does your flight get in?”

Victor shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll text you.”

“ _Hai,”_ yes, Yuri said, nodding.

Victor held out his arms, and Yuri slid into them.

“I’m glad I get to be with you a little while longer,” he said.

“Me too,” Yuri replied.

They held on a moment longer, and then Yuri stepped away. Patrick was leaning against the side of the truck, staring past the pavement to the center of the earth, looking for all the world like a living version of an album cover. Beautiful, but not really real. Appealing, but still not the type of music Victor would want to listen to. He harkened back to something that was utterly useless in the current age, and yet somehow managed to still be desirable all the same.

“Ready to go, P?” Yuri asked gently.

Patrick nodded without looking up at them, and unpeeled himself from the side of truck. He slumped around the back to the passenger door. Yuri sighed.

“He’s going to be okay,” Victor reassured him.

“He’s been going through a rough patch lately,” Yuri said.

What he left unspoken was loud enough.

“Maybe his okay will start looking different now, then,” Victor said. “That’s what growth is.”

Yuri laughed and looked at Victor. There was an almost sort of moment, when Yuri shifted forward, and then back, and glanced away again.

“I forgot how wise you are sometimes.”

“I have my moments,” Victor said, pleased.

He didn’t want Yuri to leave. He wanted the two of them to be captured in this bubble together, joking around in the late morning sun. But he would see Yuri again soon, less than a few hours. It was goodbye, but just for now. Things would be worse at the end of the week, when he had to go back to Russia, but this was a good dress rehearsal. A good acclimation to reality: from now on, his and Yuri’s time together would be defined by their farewells. Maybe one day, they would have a forever, but that was years down the line.

He gave Yuri a little shove back towards the truck.

“I’ll see you soon,” he said, and Yuri nodded.

He watched as Yuri pulled open the driver’s door and climbed into the truck. Yuri turned and said something to Patrick, which his ex boyfriend presumably responded to, because Yuri’s expression changed, just slightly, before resolve set back in and he turned to slam the door shut behind him. Victor stepped forward to tap on the glass of the window, which Yuri rolled down.

“You’ll text me when you know times?” Yuri asked.

Victor nodded.

“Let me know how you’re doing, travel wise, when you can,” he said.

Yuri’s smile was soft.

“You’re not allowed to have your phone on in an airplane, Victor,” he said.

“They can try and stop me,” Victor replied.

He wanted to reach into the cab, take Yuri’s hand and give it a quick squeeze, but Patrick was there and he wasn’t sure if Yuri would want that anyways. They walked on such a thin line, these days. Halfway towards being something, but still holding back. It was a maddening sort of balancing act.

So instead, he tapped his fingers on the metal door, and listened to the sound as it reverberated through his bones.

Yuri reached over and pulled on his seatbelt. Victor took it as his cue to step away once again. The held up their hands to each other in something between a salute and a wave goodbye as Yuri shifted the truck into drive and started pulling away. When the truck was gone, Victor stepped into the space it had occupied, lifted his hand to cover his eyes, and watched until he couldn’t see the tail-lights anymore. A few hours. He could survive a few hours without Yuri, as impossible as that seemed right now. He had been surviving without Yuri for a month or so already now. Surely a few hours would not be that difficult.

That was assuming, of course, that Yakov did not kill him in the meantime. Victor smiled, as he turned and headed back into the hotel, at what he imagined the old man’s reaction would be. Fury, of course, but it would be worth it. So very, very worth it.

OOO

Yuri and Patrick were waiting for him when he walked out of the arrivals gate at the airport. No sign, and just standing besides each other like strangers who happened to be occupying the same space. Patrick was leaning against a pole, scrolling through his phone. Yuri was balancing on the balls of his feet, scanning through the crowd with a fierce sort of attention. He smiled when he saw Victor, and then waved.

“How was your flight?” he asked as Victor came upon them.

Victor shrugged. “Fine. Yakov was furious when he realized what was going on, but that’s his problem.”

It was strange, how just a few hours and a change in geographic location could change so much, but things had changed. He was distinctly aware of the fact that he and Yuri no longer shared some liminal space, away from either of their homes, or responsibilities (despite the fact that they had been competing, and that was a responsibility, of sorts). They were back in Detroit, about to be heading back to Pontiac, and that meant resuming the regular flow of life, or at least, that held true for Yuri. As this realization came crashing down on him now, it left Victor feeling like some odd sort of observer. He didn’t belong here anymore, not really. He didn’t belong anywhere. He felt it again, that feeling he sometimes got, of being one step out of time with the rest of the universe. He longed to reach out, take Yuri’s hand, anchor himself to this moment, remind himself that this was real, he was real, but Patrick was standing right there, and there was no saying if Yuri would want that, so Victor didn’t. He just stayed standing there, pretending he didn’t feel as strange inside as he did.

Yuri tilted his head and Victor imagined that he was taking all these thoughts and feeling in, reading Victor carefully, and drawing conclusions in that meticulous way he so often did. Victor offered him a weak smile, as if to say “I’m fine.” Yuri offered Victor his open arms.

For half a heartbeat, Victor gaped at his soulmate in surprise, and then he smiled to himself--a real smile this time--and stepped forward into Yuri’s arm, felt Yuri’s hands reach up and rest on his shoulder blades.

“Are you okay?” Yuri asked quietly.

“Mmmm,” Victor hummed. “I am now.”

Yuri gave a final squeeze and then stepped away. “You just...got that look in your eyes you sometimes get,” he said. “Like if you’re here but not really here.”

“Oh,” Victor said.

They started walking. Victor turned that little observation over and over in his mind. Patrick unpeeled himself from the pole and followed them at a little distance, still glued to his phone.

“You can really tell when that happens?” Victor asked.

“It’s like--”Yuri started to explain, and then cut himself off, shaking his head. “I don't know how to describe it, but it’s in your eyes. Here but not here. You just look, smaller, somehow, more distant than usual.”

“Oh,” Victor said again.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Yuri rushed to say, “I mean, it’s part of who you are, but you always just seem sadder whenever you look like that. So I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Thank you,” Victor said softly, and Yuri nodded.

He thought about it again, slipping his hand into Yuri’s with little fuss, just as something to hold onto, but he held himself back, for the same reasons as before, mainly. It would be enough to just be this close to Yuri. It would be enough.

The reached the luggage carousel and Victor spotted and grabbed his suitcase quickly before returning to Yuri’s side. They didn’t talk, and Victor just listened to the sound their shoes made as they scuffed against the tile floor, and sound of his suitcase wheels as they rolled along behind him, a soft hum broken with little hiccups every time they crossed a ridge of a doorway.

Outside, wind rushed through the parking lot, cutting through Victor’s jacket and biting into his cheeks. He paused for a moment to pull up his scarf, and was thankful then for the hat Yuri had bought him, pulled snuggly now over his ears. Yuri murmured a question to Patrick--probably asking where they had parked--and Victor trailed behind them, keeping his head on a swivel, taking in how little everything had changed. The sky was big and blue, clear even if the air was chilly. The crash of planes taking off echoed in the near distance. He thought about the first time he had touched down here, last summer, alone besides Yurio, who had never been much company. Stranger in a strange land. He had taken an Uber to Pontiac, stayed in a nearby hotel until he could coordinate with the movers. Uncertain. Alone. Resigned to his fate.

It was different coming back now, if not only because he knew more about the place where he was going, and had friends waiting for him there. He had Yuri now, and he was a different person now. Subtly different, but still changed. He wondered then what his mother would have made of the man he had become. She’d be proud, he was certain, of everything he had done, but what would she think of his life in the whole? What would she think of Yuri? Of Theia, and Chris, Yurio, and Patrick? His poems when he had been little had been so poor--mostly about animals and flowers. Would she like what he had written now? Would she be able to, as she had been able to before, see beyond what he was saying to what he was thinking and feeling?

“Victor?” Yuri asked.

He looked up. Yuri and Patrick had gotten a little ahead. Patrick had finally pocketed his phone, and was watching his with a curious expression.

“Sorry,” Victor said.

“It’s alright.”

Yuri waited while Victor caught up. The wheels of his suitcase made a different sound now, rumbling against the asphalt. Patrick walked ahead of them, but Yuri stayed back.

“What were you thinking about?” Yuri asked.

“My mother,” Victor replied, picking the most recent in his line of thoughts.

“Do you think about her a lot?” Yuri asked.

“Not as much as I used to,” Victor admitted. “Thinking about the past doesn’t bring it back, after all.”

“Oh,” Yuri said.

The slipped into silence again, but it was an okay sort of silence. They were not surrounded, as they so often were, by the bubble of their own universe; Victor was keenly aware of Patrick’s presence, and the other families and cars that passed them as they walked towards the car, everyone coming from or going to somewhere, but it was almost as good. The wheels of his suitcase changed pitch as they switched to talking on the sidewalk. He thought about taking Yuri’s hand again.

Ahead of them, he caught sight of Patrick’s truck. They assembled around it in silence, Yuri climbed into the drivers side, and Patrick gestured for Victor to get into the middle seat while Patrick loaded his luggage into the truck bed. Once Patrick clambered in, Victor was pressed unnervingly close to Yuri, not that he was truly complaining, but he could feel his heartbeat kick up a notch and hoped that Yuri wouldn’t notice.

Patrick leaned over Victor to fiddle with the aux cord as Yuri twisted backwards and backed out of the space. It was a struggle for Victor to sit still and stare straight ahead as Yuri’s breath raced over his shoulder, and a glimpse of skin near his hip was exposed. Still, Victor’s eyes strayed back towards Yuri. He nearly jumped when Yuri turned forwards again and their eyes met, too close, for a brief second. His jaw dropped a little, the unbidden thought of _I could kiss you right now_ rising in his mind, but Yuri just smiled and went back to watching where he was going. Music burst out of the speakers and Victor started at the thundering piano chords. Patrick started singing with the vocals, and then Yuri joined in. Once he figured out the chorus, Victor eased back a little and joined them. Yuri, he couldn’t help but notice, had a truly lovely singing voice, and it was nice to keep one ear tuned for it.

The pounding beats of Patrick’s music rode with them all the way back to Pontiac. Victor slowly started to feel less separated from the world, and allowed himself to lean on Yuri’s shoulder. he sang along when he knew the song, and waited to figure out the chorus when he didn’t. Patrick rapped his knuckles against the window in time with the music, and a smile tentatively slid onto his face.

It occured to Victor then that he wasn’t the only one who had been feeling less of himself today, who had been feeling inexplicably isolated from the world.

They went to Colonel’s, as was tradition, when they finally rolled back into Pontiac. Theia and the rest were waiting for them, and there were hugs all around. Victor laughed when he saw all of them, and again when Donald shouted from the counter that if they threw confetti _then so help him._ Donald plopped orders down in front of them without asking what they wanted--even after all these months, he still had Victor’s regular memorized, as well as the regular orders of the others. They stayed late, even by Pontiac standards, and walked around campustown together, moseying towards home in a pack, arms half wrapped around each other. Theia peppered him with questions all night, about Russia, about his poetry, about skating and family. Patrick was quiet, but managed a smile here and there. Yuri stuck by his side until the end.

He and Theia walked back to her house quietly when at last the group of them had parted ways. The night was colder than the afternoon had been, and even though he was used to it, Victor still shivered a little, and tugged his coat tighter around himself. Theia noticed and smiled.

“How’s the weather been in St. Petersburg?” She asked.

“Pleasant,” he responded, “although I doubt for much longer.”

Theia hummed in agreement. “I hate winter. I hate how long it takes for it to be spring, and for the world to wake up again.”

“Well,” Victor said, “there’s something beautiful about winter too.”

Theia wrinkled her nose. “You’re just saying that because you’re king of the ice. I’d take a warm day and a soft breeze over winter any day of the week. When I’m older, I’m going to convince Maria to move South with me, Bible Belt be damned. I wasn’t meant for this sort of climate.”

He laughed and his breath puffed out in front of him. Theia set him up in a spare room in the basement. It was a little drafty, but she brought down plenty of blankets, and it was better than the couch she had initially offered. He scrolled through his phone, looking at old poems before he fell asleep, looking at the sorts of things he had written about last year, and the poem he had written just this morning.

 _Stretch out your hand and_   
_I’ll give you my heart._   
_Stretch out your soul and_   
_I’ll give you my life_   
_Gold, gold, gold forever darling_   
_We never fade away_   
_And one day if the stars align_  
 _I’ll love you ‘til my dying day._

There had been loneliness in his writing before, an unspoken isolation. They were not poems written so much by someone who had being living life so much as they had been by someone experiencing life second hand. It was unfair to suggest that Yuri alone had dragged him towards living; it placed too much of a burden on Yuri for “solving” Victor’s problems, or “fixing” him somehow. But Yuri had certainly taken his hand, and pointed him down the right path, and shown him that there was life and love waiting for him beyond his circumstances then.

He set his phone down on the little table by the bed carefully. It made a little clacking sound as it hit the wood. He was surrounded with darkness when he rolled back and tugged the blankets closer around him. It was so different from how he had woken up this morning, golden sunlight streaming in the window at his back, Yuri snuggled into the sheets beside him. All the same though, this wasn’t bad. In his childhood bedroom in Petersburg, there had been a streetlight outside his window, and it had painted splashes of white light on his dark blue walls. Here, he couldn’t have seen his hand if he held it out five inches from his face. But in the darkness, his imagination could run free. He grabbed another one of the comforters that Theia had left him with from the end of the bed and pulled it up over him, and imagined that the extra weight came from Yuri sleeping beside him once again.


	9. Chapter 9

There were times that week when Victor felt, almost, as though he had never left Pontiac. He and the others quickly settled back into their old routine--spending time studying or just hanging out at the student center, or Graeme’s. He went to practice every afternoon with Yuri or Phichit at the rink, which Ciao Ciao had been generous enough to let him make use of. They had dinner together. They laughed. Talked about their days, caught Victor up on all the new jokes that he had been missing while he’d been away. He had been sliding back, while he was in Petersburg, to his old habits, spending too much time in his head instead of with other people who coaxed him out of the glass case he sometimes surrounded himself with. It was a relief, in so many ways, to be seen as Victor the person instead of  _ Victor _ , the concept of a person. It was a relief. 

On Friday, he spent the afternoon in Graeme’s while his friends traipsed in and out. He had dropped his things off at Yuri’s earlier that morning, with a spare key that Theia had given him, because Yuri had been in class and wasn’t around to receive Victor himself. He had been in Yuri’s apartment before when Yuri had been absent, but Phichit had always been there. He had just been another supervised guest. It was a different matter to enter the code to let himself into the building, then unlock the door to let himself into the apartment. It hadn’t been hard to let his mind wander to daydreams as he did it, doing this one day with a place that he and Yuri shared, or when Phichit was in college next year, and if he ever came to stay with Yuri…

It was strange, to be trusted with Yuri’s space, if even only in passing, and to be given a key with which he could enter and leave the apartment as he wished. 

He had left his things in Phichit’s room and tried not to linger for too long. There was a sticker on the door, reading in small, shiny letters “The Theater Kid,” surrounded by little gold stars. It had made Victor smile to see it. Inside, the walls were covered in posters, most for broadway shows, or some parody on that theme, a few of famous skaters. As he had left, he had thrown a furtive glance over at Yuri’s door, which was closed, and tried not to think about the posters that were on the walls there, how Yuri had decorated his personal space. He had looked away quickly and headed for the door. It had felt like a trespass, somehow, to even think about Yuri’s room when Yuri himself was not around, even if Victor was all alone. 

His phone buzzed now and Victor tore his thoughts away from Yuri’s apartment to the coffee shop around him, and the book open in his hands. He set the book aside and picked up his phone from where he had left it on the couch besides him. 

**Theia** **  
** Yo come over to Patrick’s

He frowned. He knew there had been some discussion of coming over and hanging out with the group of them, and/or having dinner with them tonight before StS2, but  _ Patrick’s? _ Of all places, they had to meet at  _ Patrick’s? _ He tapped out a response to her quickly and tapped his fingers on the side of the phone while he waited for her response. 

**Victor** **  
** Now???? Why????

**Theia** **  
** We’re getting #ret and we want your opinion

**Theia** **  
** Also: we have food

He chuckled a little at the last message, then started packing up. Fine. If they were at Patrick’s, then to Patrick’s he would go. 

**Victor** **  
** Address?

**Theia**   
188 Rapid. Same as last year. Buzz when you’re here and we’ll let you up. 

**Victor**   
On my way

Outside, it was a crisp fall afternoon. The trees that lined the streets had already begun to shed their leaves, but were otherwise crowned with glorious shades of crimson and gold. There was a brisk sort of wind, but it was pleasant enough after the close warmth of the coffee shop that Victor didn’t bother pulling his coat together around himself. A few people passed him on the street, some townies, some students, everyone going somewhere. For a minute, as Victor paused at a light, he tried to imagine this as his life. No skating, just...this. Days spent reading and writing poetry, making taking a few classes here and there to fill his interests, coming home every night to Yuri, spending the unhurried evenings with Theia and Phichit, even Patrick, he supposed. It seemed like too good of a life. Too easy. Too perfect. But that didn’t stop him from wanting it. That didn’t stop him from wishing it was something he could have. 

And maybe he would, someday, with Yuri. Maybe they would have that little apartment just to themselves, and dates on clear nights to go out stargazing, and soft nights in when the weather was poor. 

The light turned green and Victor started walking again. What a perfect afternoon. What a perfect day in paradise. He smiled a little to himself at the thought of Pontiac being paradise. A year ago, this had been American suburbia hell. He hadn’t had any real appreciation for peace then. His life, for so long, had been  _ what’s next what’s next what’s next _ , leaning around the corners of life instead of leaning back and stretching his hand out as he did now to feel the breeze thread its way through his fingers. 

He hit the buzzer when he reached Patrick’s apartment and jogged up the steps once he heard the door click unlocked. The sound of his shoes slapping against the stairs echoed around the entryway. he counted down the doors until he reached Patrick’s, 301, 302, 304, 308. He paused for a moment, just outside, a thrill going through him as it always did when he knew he was about to see Yuri, but also in anticipation of tonight. Someone--he thought it was Patrick, but he wasn’t sure--called that the door was open when he knocked, and Victor pushed the door open. 

There was a little jog of a hallways before the living area of Patrick’s apartment, but Victor’s heart pounded with each step. It came to a full stop, however, when he turned the corner. 

Patrick was standing with his back to Victor, no shirt and dark grey sweat sitting low on his hips. A slight peep of neon green showed about the waistline. Yuri sat on the table in front of Patrick, feet resting on one of the kitchen chairs, head tilted back and eyes closed, his long lashes brushing his cheeks. As Victor stepped around them, trying to get a better look at the scene before him, he saw that Patrick held Yuri’s cheek with one hand and was very, very carefully applying a liquid line to each of Yuri’s eyes with the other. It was an odd sight, but still a beautiful one, like some painting than an impressionist would have done. 

“Oh, hey Victor.”

He pretended not to jump as Theia strutted out of the kitchen, a steaming bowl in her hands. 

“Hi,” he said, doing his best to make his voice smooth. 

Theia was wearing a pair of short black shorts and a very low cut bra. On each breast was a somewhat large, sparkly heart. There was another on her navel. And two more on each of her hips. 

“Five of hearts,” she said when she caught him struggling to take the outfit in. “We went for an Alice in Wonderland theme this year, and I’m not favored often enough by the clientele to get a high-ranking character.”

“Oh,” Victor said. “Oh, uh, well, what are the rest of you going as?”

“I’m the Hatter,” Patrick said, turning around,  and Victor glanced over at him. 

“And I’m the white rabbit.”

Victor’s eyes drifted past Patrick to Yuri and he promptly forgot how to breathe, let alone speak. Yuri usually looked flawless, of course, and you could call Victor a sucker for romance, but there was something wonderfully sexy about seeing Yuri, sitting on the kitchen table in his boxers and a plain white button up, giving Victor the faintest of smiles. 

“Hi Victor,” Yuri said. 

“Hi,” Victor said, managing enough brain power to say just that. 

Yuri wasn’t wearing his glasses, but his eyes didn’t have that usual squinty look they usually did when he was skating and couldn’t see. No, it was very clear from the way that Yuri was looking at him that Yuri could see just as well right now as he could with his glasses. For one thing, his eyes looked bigger, and it wasn’t just because of the flawless liquid line that Patrick had just applied. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Victor could just see Patrick looking between them, a small sparkle in his eye. Theia had settled on the loveseat behind Victor to eat her dinner, and seemed more focused on that than the three boys in front of her, but all the same. Victor looked away from Yuri before the two of them could also become a scene. 

“Theia said you had food?” Victor asked Patrick. 

Patrick gave Victor a weighted gaze. 

“Roasted tomato soup,” he said at last. “Yuri made it. It’s in the kitchen.”

Victor nodded gratefully and slipped past Patrick into the little space. While he dished out a bowl of soup for himself, he watched Patrick go back to playing make-up artist on Yuri through the little cutout between the living room and the kitchen above the sink. When he finished ladling out his serving, he joined Theia on the couch, eyes still trained on Patrick. He had to admit, Patrick looked like he was doing more than a halfway decent job, and there was something peaceful about watching him work. 

“Are you hype?” Theia asked, leaning closer to him. 

“I’m very hype,” Victor said with a little smile. 

“Good.”

He listened to all of them as they continued to chit chat, and threw in his two cents whenever Patrick asked for his opinion. In the end, Yuri looked breathtaking, and it was all Victor could do to not stare in awe. Patrick truly was a master, Victor had to give him that. When the three of them left to go help with final set-up, Victor left with them. They walked down the street together, Patrick tossing his keys up and catching him as they talked. 

“You’re willing to meet Maria at Graeme’s, right?” Theia asked. “And then walk over together?”

“Sure,” Victor said. It had been a while since he had seen Theia’s girlfriend; he was looking forward to the opportunity to hang out with her again. 

“Nolan’s coming too,” Patrick said softly. 

Theia glared at him. 

“What?” Victor asked. 

“Nolan’s coming too,” Patrick said. “He asked what I was up to a while back and I told him about getting ready for this and he wanted to come, so he is.”

“Well, you can’t just expect Victor and Maria to entertain him,” Theia snapped. 

“I don’t mind,” Victor said, surprising even himself. 

Theia looked back at him and her jaw dropped. Victor was very careful not to look at Yuri to gauge his soulmate’s reaction to his words. But it was true. Victor didn’t mind, if only so he could get the opportunity to assess for himself what it was about Nolan that had been so much more appealing to Patrick than Yuri. 

“Thank you, Victor,” Patrick said gently. There was a softness, an appreciation, in his eyes when he looked at Victor and said his thanks that hadn’t been there for a while. 

In that moment, Victor pitied Patrick; pitied the fact that his friend had been so short-sighted and now suffered so dearly for it, even if the consequences were justified. He pitied Patrick for having to put up with Theia’s attitude towards everything, for having to still spend so much time with Yuri,who Victor knew was next to impossible to read. He pitied Patrick for the hole Patrick had dug for himself, and how lonely it must be in its dark depths. But for all his pity, Victor had no ladder to help Patrick out, and he wasn’t even sure if he was the one who needed to be supplying the ladder in the first place. 

At the corner, they parted ways. Victor turned towards Graeme’s, and Theia and Yuri and Patrick went on towards the backbeat. Theia gave him a tight hug. Patrick give him a light nod and a ‘thank you.’ Yuri looked at Victor and gave him a smile, and it was all Victor needed for his heart to well and sing. He watched them for a moment longer after they parted ways. Theia looped her arm through Yuri’s and for a while, Patrick just trailed behind them, but then Theia reached back and took his hand too. Friends. Family. They had all been hurt and changed by everything that had happened over the last year, but that didn’t change what they were to each other. Not in the long run. With a smile, Victor turned and walked back to Graeme’s. 

OOO

It took Victor a moment to process why the man standing and looking so helpless in the middle of Graeme’s looked so familiar, but then he turned towards Victor again and Victor saw the freckles and it clicked. This was Nolan Loach, in the flesh. Patrick’s soulmate. The catalyst to Yuri and Patrick’s break-up. 

“Nolan?” Victor called. 

The man glanced back over at him, startled at being recognized, but trailed closer all the same. 

“I’m Victor,” Victor explained, “I’m a friend of Patrick’s.”

Relief flooded across Nolan’s face. 

“He mentioned you’d be here,” Nolan said, “but I never was very observant, and I wasn’t sure if it was you.”

Victor gave him a tight smile in reassurance. It was strange, to actually be here, talking to the man that had caused so much hurt, even if he didn’t know it. His voice was soft and gentle. Warm, with an easy friendliness to it. For all his uncertainty before, he was more relaxed now, confidence creeping back into the set of his shoulders. 

“Do you mind if I sit?” Nolan asked. 

“Go ahead,” Victor said, gesturing to the other end of the couch, still empty. 

Nolan sat, and then popped right back up. 

“Order!” he said. 

Victor looked up at him, bewildered. 

“What?”

“I forgot to order something,” Nolan emphasized. 

He slid over to the coffee counter before Victor could respond. For a second, Victor just glanced between the space Nolan had just occupied and where the man stood now, inching up in the line, but then he chuckled to himself. It was disconcerting to see Patrick’s freckles on someone else’s face, but it seemed that Patrick and his soulmate were alike in more ways than one. Even though Victor had barely known Nolan for more than a minute, it was clear to see how well he and Patrick probably suited each other. It would have been touching, if it wasn’t so sad. He only stopped watching Nolan when he heard someone shriek his name. 

“Victor!” 

He smiled at the sight of Maria standing in the entryway, and he stood to greet her. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Nolan peering at them cautiously, but he didn’t have time to address that thoroughly before Maria ran to greet him. The hug she wrapped him up with was warm and friendly. They had only met once before, but that was just the kind of person Maria was--when she liked you, you were family, only one meeting under the belt or not. 

“Oh, it’s good to see you,” she said, cheek pressed into his shoulder. 

She gave him one last squeeze then took a step back, holding him at arm’s length. He smiled wryly as she looked him up and down. 

“How have you been, lovely?” she asked. 

“Very well,” he said. “And you?”

She wiggled her shoulders and grinned. 

“Better now that I’m here with you.”

He chuckled and together they settled back onto the couch. 

“So,” she said, “tell me everything. How’s home? How’s skating? How’s that grumpy old coach of yours? Is St. Petersburg as magical as ever?”

Her enthusiasm and curiosity made him laugh again and he felt the tension continue to ease out of him slowly, as it always did when he was with Maria. That was the kind of personality that she had. That was her effect on people. 

“Home’s good. Honestly, I don’t know if Peterburg is capable of being anything but magical. Skating is good too--I’ll have to show you my program music later; it’s an aria. You’d like it. 

“Oooooh,” Maria said. She leaned forward, closer to him. “That does sound like something I’d like. Who’s singing it?”

Victor opened him mouth to respond, but never had the chance to say anything. 

“Hey,” Nolan said. He stood in front of them hesitantly, the self-consciousness Victor had seen in him earlier creeping back into the set of his shoulders. 

Maria looked Nolan over with a pinched mouth. She didn’t ask who he was. Victor got the feeling that, somehow, she already knew. 

“Maria, this is Nolan,” Victor said, glancing between them. “Nolan, Maria.”

Nolan smiled, and it was the sort of smile that on the surface looked easy and comfortable enough, but was underlaid with anxiety. 

“Nice to meet you,” Nolan said, holding out his hand. 

For a moment, Maria just stared at him, and the hand hovering in the space between them. Victor held his breath, waiting. Afraid, almost, of how this would go. 

But then Maria took Nolan’s hand. She didn’t smile, but there was a sort of grim resignation in the lines of her mouth. There was an appreciation there that, no matter her feelings on the matter, Nolan was here now, for better or for worse, and she needed to accommodate that. She took Nolan’s hand, and that was enough of a start that Victor felt the fear that had been coiling near his chest release itself and begin to slither away. 

“Excellent,” he heard himself say. “Maria, why don’t you order something and then we can all settle down and...yes.”

Nolan looked relieved to see someone taking charge. Maria gave him a little side eye, but then she shrugged and moved away. Nolan sighed when she was gone. 

“I don’t think she likes me,” Nolan said carefully. 

Victor had no real response to that. If Nolan didn’t know what Patrick had done to cause Maria’s attitude, Victor wasn’t about to be the one who broke the news to him. 

“I think we all just need to get used to you,” he said when Nolan wouldn’t stop looking at him. 

Used to Nolan. Used to the fact that Yuri and Patrick were no longer together. Used to the fact that Nolan, even indirectly, was the reason  _ why _ Yuri and Patrick were no longer together. Used to the fact that everything was different now. Used to the fact that things could never, ever, be the same again. Used to this, used to that. 

Nolan smiled. 

“Thank you, Victor,” he said softly. 

Victor just nodded. He wasn’t certain that there was a lot Nolan should be thanking him for, but then again, there was a lot he wasn’t very certain about these days. 

OOO

When the time came, they all walked over to the The Backbeat together. Nolan, Victor quickly found, was very easy to talk to. The other man had a knack for picking out what was really important in everything that Victor found himself saying; he knew exactly how to find the meaning behind Victor’s words. Maria kept to herself, mainly, but Nolan coaxed a few words out of her every here and there. 

Victor almost laughed at the look on Nolan’s face when they stepped inside the club. The GSA had truly outdone themselves this year. The Backbeat was as breathtaking as ever but it looked more ethereal today than it had last year, Wonderland truly come to life. Victor assumed that the girl who met them at the door gave the same spiel as last year--he was too distracted about the sight around him to pay close attention. When she finished, the three of them made their way to the bar before everything got kicked off. 

“Wow,” Nolan said, looking around while they waited. “This is really...wow.”

Maria laughed. 

“Yeah,” she said, “they go all out every year. It’s literally almost better than the show itself, just getting to be in this space.” 

“Hello trouble makers.”

They all turned to see a man dressed up (or down, Victor supposed) in plan black boxers and glittery gold suspenders standing on the stage. 

“My name is Derek, and I’ll be your host for this evening.”

A few hoots and hollers rose from the crowd that was already filling the main floor. Derek grinned wickedly. 

“I’d like to thank you all for coming out this evening--pun intended--to help us support the Trevor Project. It’s a cause that’s very near and dear to our organization’s heart, and we really appreciate y’all’s support. We’re going to save lives tonight, make the world a little bit better of a place.”

A few more cheers came from the crowd, but Derek continued on.

“We’ll have times and places for members to talk about their experiences and give their appreciation throughout the night, but as a reminder, if you ever want to speak to any of our members about StS2, or the Project, just snag one of our lovely floor workers and we’ll be happy to talk.”

More hoots. Derek smiled again. 

“Alright,” he said, “Let’s get this show on the road! Tonight, we’re going to take you on a journey, and that journey begins with the one, the only, Alice! 

The crowd erupted into applause. Derek hopped off the stage. The lights went low; music started playing. Victor turned around to grab the drink that the bartender clinked down behind him as a woman stalked onto the stage. 

“Holy shit,” Nolan muttered. “They really do go all out, don’t they?”

“You think I’d lie to you, honey?” Maria teased. 

Nolan continued to gape and Maria reached around Victor so she could squeeze Nolan’s shoulder, laughing. Her better nature, Victor could tell, was getting to her now, even in spite of how she was feeling. The knowledge of that make him smile, if only a little. This, this was his family, and even though he’d been away, he realized now that it had filled him with sorrow to see them so torn apart. 

_ We forgive _ _   
_ _ In the little moments _ _   
_ _ The spaces and time when _ _   
_ _ we surrender ourselves _ _   
_ __ to grace, and to love.

Nolan chuckled a little, and then it broke into an all out laugh. 

“This is so cool,” he said. “Man, I wish...I wish I had something like this to get involved i when I was in college. I mean, there was. I was in Spectrum, which was our GSA type club, but like, it was never this big. Never this hardcore.” 

Maria nodded proudly. 

“It really is something else,” she said. “I don’t think there’s really anything quite like it anywhere else.”

“Absolutely not,” Nolan agreed. 

“Hello hello hello again.”

Victor looked over to see Theia sneaking up next to Maria. He smiled as he watched his friend snake her arms around her girlfriend. The look Theia shot Nolan however, could be described as sour, at best. 

“You must be Nolan,” she said dryly. 

“Yeah,” he said. He grinned as he held out his hand. “How do you do.”

Theia’s lips pinched. Victor sighed. Maria hesitated for a moment, then took Theia’s hands and began leading her away. She shot Victor an apologetic look as she did. 

“Let’s go this way, lovely,” Maria said. 

Theia frowned, but followed. In a moment, she and Maria were gone. 

“Am I missing something?” Nolan asked once they were out of sight. 

“It’s not my place,” Victor said softly. 

“Please, Victor,” Nolan begged. 

Victor just grimly shook his head. “It’s not my place,” he said again. 

Nolan scoffed, but he didn’t press the issue further. They didn’t talk for a long time after that. Victor just sipped his drink and leaned on the bar and compared this year to last year, thought about his life and the state that everything was in. He felt like someone who had just witnessed a car crash and was now standing at the edge of the smoking wreckage. He had no real connection to the crash itself, except that he cared about the driver, but that wasn’t really enough, was it? He was just another person, another body, and he was causing a traffic jam because he couldn’t look away, because he wanted to help but he didn’t know how. 

Maybe it would be better for everyone if he just walked away. 

In that moment, he felt suddenly, startlingly, isolated. Nolan was leaning on the bar next to him, centimeters away, but it felt like Victor was sitting farther away. Here but not here. He thought of Maria and Theia, holding onto each other, and wished that he had someone who would do that for him--someone who would take his hands and lead him away from the noise and the crowds to someone soft and quiet where he could just be Victor, where he could just be seen for who he really was. 

“Are you alright?”

He jumped at the sound of Yuri’s voice, and looked over to see Yuri standing next to him, arms braced against the bar, tow tapping a steady rhythm behind him. Yuri was, as Victor had noted many times prior, drop-dead gorgeous, but the low and colorful lighting of The Backbeat painted the planes of his face and arms and took him to an all new level of beautiful. 

Victor glanced over quickly to see if Nolan was still besides him, but at some point, the other man must have wandered off. It was just he and Yuri. 

For a moment, Victor doubted that this was really real. 

“Patrick swung by to see Nolan and told me you were looking at the floor funny, so I came to check on you.”

“I’m fine,” Victor whispered. “Just had a weird moment.”

Yuri frowned. “What do you mean?”

Victor opened his mouth, trying to find the words to explain himself, but when nothing came to him right away, he looked away. 

“Theia and Maria aren’t being the kindest to Nolan,” he started. 

“Okay…”Yuri said. 

“So Nolan keeps asking me what’s up and I don’t know what to tell him because it’s not my story to tell him, it’s your story, or Patrick’s story, and it just left me thinking how little I really matter in all of this.”

“You matter, Victor,” Yuri said gently. 

“I don’t,” Victor insisted, “I’m just...someone who’s watching a tragedy unfold. It’s like watching a car crash and holding up traffic.”

For a second, Yuri didn’t say anything, but then he took Victor’s hand and squeezed tightly. He reached out and turned Victor’s cheek so Yuri could look him in the eye. 

“First of all, what happened to me and Patrick is not a tragedy,” Yuri said firmly. “You showed me that. It’s upsetting, but it’s not a tragedy. It’s not the end. Second, you’re not some bystander. You’re the one who pulled me out. You’re the one who took my hand and pulled me out.”

Victor didn’t know how to respond to that. He just closed his eyes and rested his cheek in Yuri’s hand. Around them, it was as though the world had gone still. He felt tired and heavy, but also safe. When it came down to it, he realized, he trusted Yuri immensely. More, perhaps, than he had ever trusted himself. 

“I don’t want to lose you,” Victor breathed. 

“I’m right here,” Yuri said gently. 

Victor peeled his eyes open. 

“But I’m about to be very far away, and then what? What if we don’t come back together again, Yuri? What if it’s just like this forever: touch and go moments where we’re barely in each other lives?”

“It won’t be,” Yuri said. 

“You don’t know that,” Victor replied. 

“It’s like I said before though,” Yuri said. “I have to believe it will be.”

“Mmmmm,” Victor hummed, not really committing to that answer. He pulled himself away and Yuri let him go.

Yuri sighed. “I have to go,” he said. “I’m about to be on. Please watch?”

Victor smiled. 

“Always,” he promised. 

Yuri hesitated, then gave his shoulder a gentle pat. It was a little gesture, but it was enough. Sometimes, that was all it took; someone reaching out in a way that said ‘You’re real. I see you. You’re here.’

This time, when Yuri came on, Victor didn’t look away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nolan is here! Wow! Amazing! Also, Yuri looking fucking fly as hell *heart eyes*
> 
> I'm sorry this chapter was late. The transition back to school this year was a little bit more of a bumpy ride than usual, and literally had No Time to post and respond to comments. Major life updates (for those of you who follow them) since y'all heard from me last: 
> 
> 1) I was moved into an apartment. I did not move myself in. I was working.   
> 2) I started working with first-year college students on a regular basis and I love it SO MUCH (seriously, I do).   
> 3) I have figured out what the next ten years (approximately) of my life will look like. It involves taking physics so I can get into grad school. I have never taken physics in my life.   
> 4) I STARTED DOING ACTUAL REAL-LIVE BIOLOGY RESEARCH AND IT IS SO FUCKING COOL AHHHH  
> 5) I am currently taking four English classes. One of them is entirely about comics. This is my favorite class.
> 
> Next chapter will be posted next Friday (promise) and that's the last (official) chapter in this arc. Muse and I are going to chat soon about the next arc.


	10. Chapter 10

When the time came for the event to finish, Victor walked with Theia, Maria, and Nolan back towards Over the Rainbow. Yuri and Patrick had been tapped for clean-up crew, as well as helping to tally how much they had earned that night, and Theia insisted that they would be along later. It had been a while since he had been to Over the Rainbow, but the moment he stepped through the threshold, memories came flooding back. Dancing with strangers in the living room. Standing with Theia in the corner over there, talking about poetry and music one night. Walking down this hallway and pushing out the door into the night after Yuri and Patrick had emerged from the crowd, noticeably disheveled, hands still all over each other.

All things considered though, he had always liked the way that the house was decorated on the inside. It seemed more like something taken out of wealthy suburban America than a place where college students had been living year after year. Pride flags lined the hallways and were draped from the walls, photos of club members and prominent community members marched up the walls by the staircase, like some proud assemblage of family portraits. The ceilings, on the ground floor at least, were tall enough that more than once, Victor had seen people easily step up onto the polished dining room table and dance without risking hitting their heads. Over the Rainbow was one of those places where you walked in the front door and no matter who you were, or where you came from, it felt like home.

Nolan took it all in with a loose smile.

“I feel like I just walked into the Gryffindor common room,” he muttered, leaning over so that just Victor could hear.

“What?” Victor asked.

“You know, like _Harry Potter_ ,” Nolan said. “Like, this is where I was meant to be all along.”

Victor smiled, finally understanding the sentiment. “That’s how I felt the first time too.”

“Come on,” Theia said, taking his hands and leading him down the hallway, “I want a drink and you make the best manhattans.”

Victor laughed and allowed himself to be led away, Nolan following half a step behind him. In the kitchen, enough alcohol to supply a small liquor store was set up on the counter, and Victor got to work. Theia sat on one of the barstools and watched him, her head on Maria’s shoulder, who stood besides her. Nolan leaned on the counter without saying anything, but Victor knew that the other man was carefully assessing the dynamic between all of them, trying to gather more information about the inner workings of their little group.

People came in and out, grabbing drinks from the fridge or mixing concoctions of their own while the four of them lingered. Theia sipped her drink slowly. Maria downed two shots in one go and then went back to chatting. Nolan held a water but didn’t drink it. To Victor’s neverending surprise, conversation was surprisingly civil. Either the alcohol or her conversation with Maria earlier that evening had turned Theia friendlier, and she asked questions to Nolan directly without a lick of hostility underlying her words. After a while, a cheer went up in the rooms beyond the safety of their kitchen, and they all looked up, but none of them moved to investigate. Theia just shrugged and said it was probably just people doing stupid things.

For his part, Victor listened to the others talk and wondered when Yuri would show up. He couldn’t shake the way it had felt for Yuri to look him directly in eyes and hold his cheek and actually talk to him. Not just in the physical sense, although Victor had been struggling to keep himself from reaching up and retracing the places where Yuri’s fingers had been. It was more on a spiritual level, this reminder that Yuri was the first person Victor had ever met who didn’t see Victor Nikiforov, celebrated figure skater, Victor Nikiforov, playboy, Victor Nikiforov, celebrity. Yuri saw _him._ When Yuri looked at Victor, he looked beyond the surface to all the emotion that raged beneath, and he did not look away.

With a start, Victor realized then that he trusted Yuri entirely. He trusted Yuri with his life. Not just his life, as in his mortal life, as in he trusted Yuri to look after his physical well being, but he trusted Yuri with his _life._ He trusted Yuri with what made him _Victor._ He always had. That was what their conversation on the steps of the lake house this summer had been, what every conversation Victor had had with Yuri since had been, every conversation he had longed to have and imaging having with Yuri since: trust. It was a strange realization, but a comforting one. For so long, after all, he had been on his own, shifting to fit the mood of the people he was with. Himself, but not himself all at the same time. There was a poem he’d written, years ago. It came to mind now.

_It took me a while to_   
_Learn that people weren't_   
_Always going to be there and_   
_I've managed to stand tall_ _  
Ever since_

It felt true and not true these days. Of course he was on his own. He was always on his own, especially when he was in Russia, but with Yuri he didn’t feel like he _had_ to be alone. Yuri, he knew, was someone he could rely on entirely. Even Theia, he thought, would have her limits, but Yuri would always be there for him. Always. Stars dancing together and then coming apart. Forever and ever into the dawn.

The door to the kitchen burst open and Yuri and Patrick stumbled in, laughing together at something one or another had just said. Victor’s heart dropped out at the sight, then did the same little flip-flop it did every time he saw Yuri.  The sight of the two of them together like this though was eerily familiar to what it had been like last year, enough so that Victor nearly forgot that Yuri and Patrick had indeed broken up and never intended to get back together again. Theia wrinkled her nose.

“Are you two drunk already?” she asked.

“Ahem, already?” Patrick asked. “Theia, we’ve been here for an hour.”

That left a sinking feeling in Victor’s chest. Yuri had been here for an hour and hadn’t immediately come to see him. There was a voice in the back of Victor’s head that asked if Yuri really did see him after all.

“And I wouldn’t say _drunk,_ ” Yuri said.

“Pleasantly tipsy,” Patrick said.

“Exactly,” Yuri said. He giggled afterwards, looking at Patrick through his lashes, and Victor wished he could just disappear.

“What have you two been up to?” Theia asked.

“I was reclaiming my title,” Yuri said. “King of the dance table.”

“Naturally,” Theia said dryly.

“I did my best, but he outdid me in the end,” Patrick said, fake pouting.

“I’ll have to go back soon. I only surrendered my place because I was thirsty.”

The music blasting in the front of the house, as if magnified by Yuri and Patrick’s presence, seeped in under the door now, present and far off all at once. Victor could just make out the lyrics and the round sound of the pounding chords. Patrick continued to bop along with it as he slipped up to the bar set up along the counter and began making a drink. Yuri leaned next to him, head tilted back as he watched Patrick’s movements, the long line of his neck exposed.

“Excuse me,” Victor said, standing up suddenly. Theia’s head whipped in his direction. Yuri turned towards him more slowly, still half focused on Patrick. “I need some air,” Victor explained in halted words.

Bodied crushed around him as soon as he stepped out into the hall and for a moment, he had a vision of a dream he’d had once, when he was younger: standing on the ledge overlooking Neka River with his father, and then falling in. Even when he had tried to kick his way back to the surface, hands had tugged on his feet and pulled him under. He had tried to reach down and free himself, but when he had looked back up, the river had frozen over, and even when he had pounded on the ice, he couldn’t break free.

He imagined now as he stepped through the door that this was the ice, that this time he was breaking free. The night air certainly had a bite to it that it hadn’t had before. Around him, the music was still pounding, bursting from the house like a monster that refused to be contained. The view around him as he looked around wasn’t familiar, and it took him a minute to realize that he had been turned around, and that he’d come out the back door instead of the front. There was a couple under a nearby tree that was watching him with careful eyes. He brushed his bangs back from his forehead and after another second, they went back to making out. There was no moon to reflect off the waves of the nearby lake, but Victor could practically feel its presence, and he could just hear the sound of lapping water beneath the music. Without thinking, he set off through the grass towards the water.

For a while, once he reached the lakeside, he just stood and stared at the water. Darkness pooled around him, perhaps even piercing inside him, touching down to his soul. He didn’t know if he felt sick, or if he felt like crying, or if that was laughter bubbling in the back of his throat. It was all too tangled up inside him. He didn’t feel real. He felt more real than he ever had in his lifetime, cold air kissing against his cheeks, digging claws into his palm. He was so tired. He was so awake he felt like he could pick out every star in the sky. He was so heavy. He was so light that he feared he might go floating away forever.

_What am I but_   
_Empty on the inside just_   
_A hollow man in a hollow world._   
_Hollow heart, hollow soul, hollow_ _  
Mind. _

_And, oh, I sink I sink, I_   
_Fade and Fade. Nothing but_   
_Shadows on the inside, nothing but_   
_Illusions without, just a ghost  
Living a hollow life._

“Hey.”

Victor turned, he knew that voice. He just doubted that the owner was actually there. In the state he was in, it was just as likely to be an illusion.

But Yuri took a step closer to him.

“Are you okay?” Yuri asked. “You rushed out pretty quickly.”

“Couldn’t breathe,” Victor said. His voice sounded a little choked.

Yuri stepped closer and reached out again, just as he had before in The Backbeat, and held Victor cheek carefully in his hand.

“I don’t love Patrick,” Yuri said clearly.

“I know,” Victor said.

What he didn’t add was that he didn’t really believe it, though.

“Victor,” Yuri said. He tilted Victor’s face so that Victor had to look him in the eyes.

The world was so loud; music still coming from the house, so far away, water rushing against the shore of the lake, right besides him, the ringing of Victor’s own ears deep in his soul.

And then Yuri kissed him.

It was an unhurried kiss; a kiss unlike any they had shared before. It was gentle and sweet and kind. It was everything Victor liked best about Yuri wrapped into one, and, shamefully, because it was so unexpected, it took him a minute to process what was going on and respond. By then though, Yuri had pulled away again. Victor gave enough of a little chase though that Yuri held onto the back of his neck though, warm fingers tangling with the short strands, almost ticking, and Victor shuddered.

“You surprised me,” Victor breathed.

Yuri laughed a little.

“Me too,” he said.

Their foreheads were pressed together and for a moment all Victor could think about was that this was never as comfortable as people implied that it would be, but it was still nice because he was close to Yuri and being close to Yuri was all that really mattered. Their breaths mingled together in the night, puffing up around their faces as the cold air made clouds. Victor found Yuri’s hand and wrapped their fingers together, just holding on, just holding on.

_Keep me close as_   
_The night rushes in_   
_Forget the stars above us_   
_You’re the best thing_ _  
I’ve ever seen_

“I hate this,” Yuri whispered. “That I know I don’t love Patrick and I think I’m falling in love with you, but I just can’t tell because it’s different than falling in love was before, or maybe it’s been too long, and you’re too far away to really tell. It’s like watching the stars light years away and trying to tell if there’s a habitable planet orbiting them.”

“I’m right here now,” Victor said, reaching up his free hand to rest on the one Yuri still had tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck.

“It’s not enough,” Yuri said.

“I know.”

For a moment, they just stood together in silence. Victor listened to the sound of Yuri breathing and let that anchor him. And because it’s impossible to slip into nothing when someone who cares about you and who you care about in turn holds onto you, Victor held onto Yuri, and Yuri held onto Victor. In his mind, Victor raced back to that porch earlier in the summer, when they had sat together eating _katsudon_ and talking about their lives and reimagined the memory as if they were older, without a world dividing them. In the memory now, he rested his head on Yuri’s shoulder and Yuri wrapped his arms around him. Together. Together until the end. No more dancing in and out. Just this. Forever.

A shout went up from near the house and they both turned to see what it was. Light haloed around a dozen or more silhouettes spilling out the patio door.

“Lake run,” Yuri said. “It’s a tradition.”

“Are you going to join?” Victor asked.

Yuri shook his head and then looked back at Victor with a smile.

“No,” he said. “I’m right where I want to be.”

Victor laughed. “Me too.”

Yuri stepped back into Victor’s space again and this time Victor wrapped his arms around Yuri and held on tight. He had no idea what to do now. Yuri was right, he knew. It was too hard to figure everything out when they were both so far away, but it wasn’t like if they had another option. He loved Yuri, but he wasn’t ready to give up his ambitions yet, and he knew that Yuri wouldn’t want him to either.

Near the house, he heard someone shout ‘Go!’ and the silhouettes started running towards the lake. With a smile, he realized they were shedding clothes as they went (how else would a night that began with a mock strip club begin to come to a close?). Shrieks rang out louder along with splashes as the leaders reached the lake. Victor pressed a kiss to Yuri’s temple. Yuri sighed.

“Home?” Victor asked.

Yuri nodded. Victor stepped away, but he grabbed onto Yuri’s hand tightly. Together, they picked their way across the grass towards the front of the house.

“I don’t know what to do,” Victor admitted once they had reached the sidewalk. “About us.”

“Me neither,” Yuri said, sounding just as defeated.

Victor squeezed his hand and Yuri looked up at him, streetlights glinting in his eyes like stars.

“But even if for now we have to dance apart, we’ll come together again and figure it out,” Victor promised.

Yuri nodded. “I wish we didn’t have to,” he said.

“Mmmmm,” Victor hummed in agreement, pulling his soulmate close, “but for now can I just say something?”

“What?” Yuri asked, inches away now.

It could have been Victor’s imagination, but he sounded a little breathless.

“I love you,” Victor said, and then he, finally, kissed Yuri back.

When they parted, minutes or ages later, framed against the night by the golden lights, Yuri was and truly breathless. His thumb circled out a little pattern on Victor’s shoulder.

“I’m definitely tipsy,” Yuri muttered, but then he looked up at Victor and there was fire in his eyes, “but... _dai suki._ I really am falling for you, Victor.”

“Take your time,” Victor breathed, and then they kissed again, and it was impossible to tell who had started and who returned it. Maybe it was both of them. Mostly it didn’t matter though, because all that mattered was this: the two of them, toeing something akin to being together, at long last, love all around them and keeping them afloat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the end! (sort of)
> 
> There is a sort-of epilogue-y thing that I'm going to post on the blog for sure next week, but also (probably) here as well. I am also working on the next arc in between working on my own projects. I do not know when it will be finished. So y'all have a vote: 
> 
> a) I stick to the same plan and don't post ANYTHING until it's finished  
> b) I post chapters as they come up on the blog  
> c) I post chapters as I finish them here with uncertain times between when chapters will be published. 
> 
> Let me know what you're voting for below!


End file.
